Upgrade Fast WAN, More Storage

To prepare for a simpler, more efficient electronic-discovery process, the Securities and Exchange Commission had to upgrade its infrastructure, including its wide area network, to handle increased traffic in imaging and optical character-recognition files, as well as its storage system. SEC CIO Corey Booth expects to amass 30 to 50 terabytes of data in the new document-imaging system in the next year.

The SEC has installed two high-speed 45-Mbps pipes at every one of its offices around the country. They're linked in a point-to-point WAN so there's no single point of failure. It also has deployed a high-capacity storage architecture using EMC Corp. equipment, which houses 13 terabytes of data accumulated since the imaging project began in May.

Last year, the agency replaced all its desktops with state-of-the-art Dell machines, and it's replacing all laptops this summer and fall. "They were all highly obsolete and past their useful lives, as well as not providing the speed and functionality we needed," Booth says. The SEC also invested in dual-monitor configurations for attorneys reviewing imaged documents.