Courtesy of Info World

IBM i2 Intelligence Analysis is aimed at law enforcement, government, or businesses looking to predict and prevent criminal, terrorist, and fraudulent activities

IBM today came out with its first iteration of the analytics software package that it expects will help law enforcement, government agencies, and private businesses wade through the massive amounts of data they collect to help them predict, disrupt, and prevent criminal, terrorist and fraudulent activities.

The package, IBM i2 Intelligence Analysis portfolio, is based on the security software it picked up last year when it bought i2. Law enforcement agencies and corporate security departments use i2's software to pinpoint fraudulent or improper activity within their logs of operational data. The company's Analyst's Notebook digital forensic software can display a visual diagram of people, places, or other entities, showing how different parties are linked.

According to an IDG New Service report at the time of the buy, i2 had more than 4,500 customers across 150 countries. The company said that 12 of the top 20 retail banks use its software. The Boston Police Department and the Criminal Justice System in Orange County, Calif., share criminal data through i2's Coplink platform. In a $9.6 million contract, the U.S. Army procured an enterprise license to use Analyst's Notebook in its troubled Distributed Common Ground Systems -- Army (DCGS-A) intelligence sharing system. Defense contractor Northrop Grumman folded i2's Coplink into a system it is providing to the Navy to track criminal information from multiple sources.

Last fall, IBM said it would bring together i2 technology with its own data collection, analysis and warehousing software. And today's announcement is an example of what Big Blue plans to do.

With the rollout today IBM said the package will give customers powerful visualization and analysis capabilities coupled with advanced data access to help organizations to manage and process information in less time, giving them more time to spend on analysis.

In addition i2 supports:

• Association, network, link, temporal, geospatial, and statistical analysis to help build a comprehensive analytical picture, revealing relationships, patterns and trends in data that can help save time and increase efficiency.

• Social Network Analysis (SNA) and quantitative analysis techniques that combine organization theories with mathematical models to help better understand and target the dynamics of groups, networks, and organizations.

• Collaborative working capabilities that support the greater organization in working together on cases, supporting sharing, teamwork, and inter- and intra-organizational communication, helping investigations to be resolved more quickly.

• Advanced connectivity and multi-source, simultaneous search capabilities that automate and accelerate the lengthy research process of capturing, collating, and enriching data.

• Searching unstructured data using powerful search capabilities to cast the net wide and deep to ensure that no data is missed in supporting investigative and operational activities.

• Real-time exploration of intelligence, delivering an extensible, scalable, and collaborative environment supporting operational analysis and faster, more informed decision-making across an enterprise.

Included in the IBM i2 Intelligence Analysis portfolio:

• IBM i2 Analyst's Notebook which lets government agencies and private businesses to maximize the value of the mass of information that they collect to discover and disseminate actionable intelligence that may help identify, predict, and prevent criminal, terrorist, and fraudulent activities.

• IBM i2 Analyst's Notebook Connector for Esri integrates the capabilities of IBM i2 Analyst's Notebook with the capabilities of the Esri ArcGIS server to drive timely and informed operational decision-making. IBM i2 Analyst's Notebook Connector for Esri enables access to published mapping services from available Esri Server environments. It supports a range of mapping and geospatial analysis tools that enable analysts to do fundamental geospatial analysis tasks without the need to go to dedicated GIS analyst teams, which also allows these teams to concentrate on the in-depth geospatial analysis tasks. This self-service access to available data-rich Esri Servers (providing access to base maps, dynamic feature layers, and GIS services) directly from IBM i2 Analyst's Notebook allows analysts to move forward with intelligence products quickly, helping to increase the productivity of the intelligence production process, IBM said.

• IBM i2 Information Exchange for Analysis Search for Analyst's Notebook lets IBM i2 Analyst's Notebook connect to disparate and distributed data sources, perform a single search across these multiple resources, and then bring information back into IBM i2 Analyst's notebook for visualization and analysis.

• IBM i2 Information Exchange for Analysis Search Services SDK allows for secure access to multiple data sources, irrespective of type or location, across heterogeneous IT environments. It provides a set of developer tools and documentation allowing the creation, extension, and customization of web services components and IBM i2 Information Exchange for Analysis Search for Analyst's Notebook.

• IBM i2 Analyst's Notebook Premium builds on the capabilities of IBM i2 Analyst's Notebook with a local analysis repository and new capabilities for enhanced data management, information discovery, and charting to address today's increasing volumes of structured and unstructured data. The addition of a local analysis repository to IBM i2 Analyst's Notebook and the new capabilities introduced for enhanced data management, information discovery, charting, and chart management complete the offering for an individual who requires access to greater volumes of data than IBM i2 Analyst's Notebook can contain in charts alone, the company stated. IBM said this version of the notebook will let users import higher volume data from structured data files via the wizard-style Visual Importer, letting users quickly visualize and analyze a wide range of data types including telephone call records, financial transactions, computer IP logs, and mobile forensics data.

• IBM i2 Intelligence Analysis Platform offers a scalable and collaborative environment supporting operational intelligence sharing and faster, more informed decision-making across your enterprise.

• IBM i2 Fraud Intelligence Analysis enables insights across large, complex, and disparate data sets to help investigate, disrupt, and prevent fraud. Fraud Intelligence Analysis helps turn massive, unrelated data sets into actionable intelligence and presents the results in an easily digestible way, IBM said. IBM i2 Fraud Intelligence Analysis can be used as a stand-alone fraud identification and analysis solution where currently there is either no, or only a manual, capability currently.

• It can also be deployed in conjunction with other IBM products for predictive analytics, identity management, business process rules, and case management.

• IBM i2 iBase is a comprehensive SQL server database application that lets collaborative teams of analysts capture, control, and analyze multi-source data in a secure environment and disseminate the results as actionable intelligence in support of intelligence-led operations.

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