NewsBriefs, articles, notes for publication release injlocationservices

[Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>]

Title: NewsBriefs, articles, notes for publication release in jlo

Hi Folks,

While I can't yet guarantee that my contact, Christopher Lakey, will be able to get a special issue of the jlocations newsletter on CAP out by Monday afternoon-evening, I have not received the word to just let it slide, so I am going to supply herein the one thing I am writing, a newsbrief-report on the "Interoperability Now!" event March 11, along with an attached article included in a post from Eliot Christian recently, and a few notes about what I have put together so far. I have asked Eliot for permission to republish the article, and won't use without that permission. I doubt I would have time to paraphrase and then attribute my paraphrasing, and I certainly don't have time to build my own article at this time.

I am also explaining what else I am trying to include.

I will use our Fact Sheet with a brief introduction for the main feature. It is fairly short and easy to grasp.

This Introduction contains a reference and link to the Cover Pages article on CAP which is very informative and authoritative. I will repeat that in the set of links for for the issue to sources and references.

I have a url for the notice about CAP in the recently published CapWIN newsletter, which will be included in the set of links for the issue to sources and references.

I have sent a message to DMIS asking for permission to excerpt from their presentation to this TC last May 21, 2003. slides 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 20 with a very brief description of DMIS and what an interoperability service is.

If I were to receive the other reports, I would happy to include them.

Here is my very brief report on Interoperability Now!

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Interoperability Now!
by Rex Brooks, co-chair, OASIS EM (Emergency Management) Messages and Notification Subcommittee (SC)

Much of the following report is excerpted from a recent message by Art Botterell, co-chair, OASIS EM Messages and Notification SC, to the mailing list he maintains for the working group which began the work of developing The Common Alerting Protocol, CAP, which was subsequently brought under the aegis of the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee.  The Interoperability Now! event, held March 11, 2004, which included a demonstration of CAP interoperability, was organized by Congressmember Carl Weldon following a similar demonstration during the Global Homeland Security Conference held in Washington D.C.  September 24-26, 2003.

The Interoperability Now! event highlights the current context of CAP. The Emergency Management Technical Committee of the international Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) has voted to approve The CAP 1.0 Committee Draft for submission as a standard to OASIS. It's currently being voted upon by the OASIS member organizations.

Recently, the ComCARE Alliance and the Emergency Interoperability Consortium took CAP to Capitol Hill on March 11th, 2004.  As part of a program called "Interoperability Now!" an operating network of CAP-based applications were shown to legislators, staff and agency representatives in the Rayburn House Office Building.  Participants in the CAP demo included the DHS DMIS (Disaster Management Interoperability Services) program, MyStateUSA, Warning Systems Inc., the Contra Costa County (CA) Community Warning System and mobileFoundations, Inc.

According to Art Botterell, a member of the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee and a participant in Partnership for Public Warning, attended the event and reported that David Aylward of ComCARE described it as "CAP's debutante ball, saying, " It did feel a bit like that, actually."

Art reported that  "the technology demonstration also featured the "E-Safety Network" and the "Emergency Provider Access Directory" projects being spearheaded by ComCARE members ... systems for geospatial imaging and radio/telephone interconnection ...  It was preceded by a series of panel sessions covering various aspects of standards-based interoperable  communication. ..."

Among the notable news that Art collected was the item that, "Pete O'Dell of the Oregon RAINS project dropped by the demo event to mention that they've now processed over 87,000 CAP messages in their system. ..." and "... Elsewhere, the California Office of Emergency Services has issued a contract to update its Emergency Digital Information Service system to more fully integrate CAP. 

Art also reports to his list that "... we've been contacted by a research team in Western Australia who're putting together a CAP-based integrated warning methodology demo Down Under.

Art noted in closing his message, "...we're bringing CAP from concept to reality, faster than expected but not sooner than we need it . ..."

Gary Ham, of DMIS, and an OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee member, also attended the event as a participant in the demonstration which consisted of two demonstration networks, the DMIS transport system which provides a CAP API which can be used via SOAP in a web services-based implementation for sending and receiving CAP alert messages, and the ComCARE E-Safety EMERGENCY PROVIDER ACCESS DIRECTORY (EPAD), which can receive CAP alert messages through an intelligent message broker service.  Gary reported that the event was well-attended.

Included in the demonstration was a mobile computer backpack which points toward one of the next challenges to interoperability of emegency response capabilities, sending and receiving updates from rapidly evolving emergency sites. Thus, future considerations were included within the overall theme of the "Interoperability Now!"  event.

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Well, that's what there is of it at this particular moment in time. I would love to say that it might expand before I could report it back to y'all, but I can't.

If you see showstoppers in here somewhere, it would be best to let me know. I plan to to send it off this evening.

Ciao,

Rex

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Rex Brooks
GeoAddress: 1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA, 94702 USA, Earth
W3Address: http://www.starbourne.com
Email: rexb@starbourne.com

Tel: 510-849-2309

Fax: By Request

Alerting.doc