The Swedish Police Use MySQL

MySQL AB, the developer of the most famous open source database has announced today that the Swedish National Police is implementing an enterprise-wide project for building all its new IT systems on an open source software infrastructure that uses Linux,
MySQL and JBoss. At this moment, some existing systems are being migrated.

Per-Ola Sjosward, Executive IT-strategist at the Swedish National Police said: "Our primary aims are to cut costs and reduce the risk of vendor lock-in while maintaining the high reliability and security inherent in police work. Estimated savings are 50 percent compared to the proprietary solutions that we also investigated. Over time, it represents the cost of 400 fully-equipped police cars."

This decision was taken after the national police did some extensive calculation and internal testing to find valid alternatives. Because of the great number of employees, the organization had to pay enormous amounts of money for its legacy proprietary software.

Per-Ola Sjosward added: "We have a commitment to our country's tax payers to find tools that yield the best performance-to-cost ratio for the long run. Open source software is mainstream today -- used by many of the world's leading companies and organizations for critical systems due to its increased safety and flexibility.

Implementing a standard OSS infrastructure running on lower-cost commodity hardware is simply the best option, according to our tests. We also like the concept of MySQL Enterprise's proactive advisory tools, as opposed to the traditional routines to call support when something breaks - the new approach actually reflects the proactive nature of police work quite well."

Richard Mason, MySQL AB's vicepresident of EMEA, believes that the choice of the Swedish National Police is a good example for other organizations, considering that open source software can really help them in accomplishing their missions.

Sjosward will be present at the upcoming MySQL Customer Conference in London on October 16, and he will participate in a free web seminar on October 24.