Divide and Conquer Massive Data Sets with FTK Lab

Frequently asked questions

• How many DPE processing engines can be configured with FTK Lab?

  Increasing the processing power of FTK Lab is easily achieved with additional hardware.  With its centralized processing farm infrastructure, you can configure FTK Lab with up to 16 Distributed Processing Engines (DPE) per Distributed Processing Manager (DPM).  We recommend starting with 6-8 DPEs when you first implement FTK Lab. 

  For more information about FTK Lab configuration, reference the System Specification Guide.

• Can FTK Lab accommodate users inside and outside my organization?

  Yes!  FTK Lab can be configured behind your firewall for inter-agency review teams to work together on cases.  And its web-based review infrastructure can also securely allow for outside investigators or attorneys from other jurisdictions and agencies to participate in the review process, regardless of their location.

• Can FTK Lab be deployed in the cloud?

  FTK Lab can be easily deployed in a cloud environment like AWS or Azure to scale your infrastructure, control costs, and save on hardware. You can host FTK Lab in your own private cloud environment for full control over your hardware configuration, or host with a third party provider and simply bring your FTK Lab licenses with you and scale up or down as needed depending on case sizes. Another possible benefit is that a cloud setup can often be purchased out of an operating budget instead of a capital budget. Bottom line: many of our FTK Lab customers successfully use a cloud configuration and have achieved extraordinary processing speeds and cross-agency collaboration milestones.

• What kinds of user permissions can be set in FTK Lab?

  FTK Lab’s roles and permissions can allow each user to access only the features and data that are relevant to their part of the investigation. Administrators can assign users to a specific case or set of data within a case.  Users can even be restricted by feature, so only qualified users can access more advanced functions.  

  Dividing the evidence creates a more efficient and secure workflow, so you can bring in non-technical users without worrying about the data being compromised. With the web-based, true native review system, non-technical users (such as attorneys, HR personnel, outside experts, etc.) can be given case file access, regardless of where they’re located.

• Does FTK Lab work with the newest Smart View interface?

  Yes, FTK Lab offers both the traditional Core View UI and the new Smart View interface for users of all skill levels.  For example, newer or less technical users can work in the Smart View and collaborate with an investigator back in the lab who's still using Core View.  They can work in the same case file together and both see each other’s changes because the case files are centralized and the interface is simply a personal preference for each user.

• What types of digital devices can FTK Lab collect data from?

  Create full-disk forensic images and process a wide range of data types from many sources, including Windows and Linux hard drives, CD’s and DVDs, thumb drives or other USB devices, network data and Internet storage, all in a centralized, secure database.  

  You can also optionally include FTK Central in your FTK Lab environment to add remote endpoint and cloud data source collection capabilities.