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Federal Police

Federal Police helicopters are used, among other things, for border surveillance, transporting police forces during large-scale operations, providing support to the Federal Criminal Police Office, and responding to accidents and disasters. Depending on the area of operation, the helicopters differ not only in color but also in equipment: For air rescue services, there are orange helicopters (instead of blue ones) equipped with medical devices (rather than police tactical equipment) provided by the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance. In digitizing flight training, the Federal Police Air Group uses UCS@school as a central management system.

  • approx. 1,000 employees in the flight service, 13 IT employees at the Federal Police Aviation Group
  • 750 IT users
  • 190 laptops
  • 55 WLAN access points
  • 90 specialist applications
  • Central and modern management system for flight instructors to support apprentices in flight service
  • Structuring the rollout and installation of hardware
  • Possible deployment in the educational sector (data protection, transparency, functionality)
  • High degree of automation and usability
  • Preferential use of open-source software
  • Univention Corporate Server (UCS) in the school edition (UCS@school) for the digitization of the Aviation School for Police Service (LFSfdPD) of the Federal Police
  • Management of multiple specialized applications for aviation-specific processes in UCS@school
  • OPSI as the core application for rolling out and implementing

 

 

Situational Background and IT Realignment with UCS@school

Prior to implementing the open-source solution UCS@school to digitize aviation training, ILUT (Interactive Learning and Training System), a standalone training system, was used. However, ILUT no longer sufficed due to increased demands within the Aviation School for Police Service (LFSfdPD) over the years, necessitating a centralized IT management system. The new strategy aimed to shift to a ‘paperless’ approach, digitally providing extensive training materials instead of the previous paper-based format.

For the implementation, a decision was made in 2013 to collaborate long-term with Univention and to adopt and receive support for UCS@school, as the solution met all the requirements and was also open source. It is well-suited for the (aviation) training sector, user-friendly, automated, and highly integrated.”

Open source can be this simple. – Head of ICT/Specialist IT at the Federal Police Aviation Group, Aviation Technology Staff Section

Challenges for IT at the Federal Police Aviation Group

Despite the overall positive balance since the deployment of UCS@school, there have also been hurdles to overcome in over nine years. The rapid and surprising change in strategy during the Corona pandemic proved particularly challenging. In the LFSfdPD, the open source-based learning management system (LMS) ILIAS was henceforth used instead of UCS@school for certain subareas of IT. The LFSfdPD became aware of this LMS through good networking within the Federal Police. There, ILIAS, currently in project status, has been used for some time to provide content in the training of future police officers.

Although UCS@school has thus become obsolete for these subareas, the advantages of the solution still predominate in other important areas. For example, UCS@school was successfully used to optimize the organization of digitized measuring and testing equipment.

Appealing Open Source Solution Offers Many Advantages

Today, the IT infrastructure of the Federal Police Aviation Group is characterized primarily by its professionalism, controllability, and centralized manageability – showcasing how digitization in public administration, particularly in the field of flight training, can succeed.

Thanks to UCS@school, prejudices against Open Source have been quickly and sustainably dismantled. After all, the concept of the central database, which makes all IT processes controllable via a single node, makes the application both appealing and accessible even to open source novices and skeptics who have had negative experiences with OSS in the past. Another advantage is the long-term nature of the cooperation with Univention.

The head of the ICT/Subject IT department emphasizes: “The cooperation can be described as very quiet; in the more than nine years, only three support tickets have been triggered.”

Further Planning at the Federal Police Aviation Group

Currently, 750 IT users (via the core application OPSI), 190 laptops, 55 WLAN access points and 90 specialist applications for aviation-specific processes are managed with UCS. In the coming years, plans are to expand the programs and integrate additional processes and requirements into UCS@school. This also includes the introduction of new hardware with different operating systems (e.g. iOS, Android, Linux) as well as applications. On the one hand, this is intended to continuously develop scalability and the update process in the area of hardware and software, and on the other hand, to respond flexibly to the needs of users as broadly as possible and in accordance with their wishes.