© 2008 Swan Island Networks Information Sharing and Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) – How Interoperable Data can enable Cross Organizational Communication Swan Island Networks, Inc. Pete O’Dell Founder/Director Swan Island Networks

© 2008 Swan Island Networks 2 Introduction, bias & rules  Introduction:  Biz and technical guy  Lots of experience (AKA made many mistakes)  Writing a book, building a company  Bias:  Action – do something, fix it, repeat  Standards – do it predictably once it works  Rules/request for this presentation:  Make it interesting – life is short  Questions drive response and focus  Critical feedback appreciated

© 2008 Swan Island Networks 3 Bottom line up front ( BLUF )  Interoperable data important  Moving toward critical mass globally  Massive increase in structured feeds:  Sensors, systems (CAP), publishers (RSS)  Disparate examples – I/M to E/M  Govt taking active interest - NIEM  3 choices: Make it happen Watch it happen Wonder what happened

© 2008 Swan Island Networks 4 Standards – reaching back in time  Great Wall of China – 3 generations  Eli Whitney and interchangeable parts  Railroad tracks  7.62mm ammunition (real bullets)  Shipping containers Manual load/pack/unload - longshoremen 1950’s – first container shipments Ports rose and fell based on adoption 8,000x productivity increase over 40 years World trade enabled

© 2008 Swan Island Networks 5 Technology standards - our lifetime….  COBOL – Grace Hopper - Arlington  Credit Cards – early standard data  Uniform Product Codes  IBM PC – normalized many other types  TCP/IP – trumped several competitors  World Wide Web (HTML) – When? Who?  SGML/XML – structure for other machines instead of pages for people

© 2008 Swan Island Networks 6 Information Sharing – what it is?  Traits: Cross organizational (FSLTIPP) Comprehensible (sent/received) Trusted (publisher/recipient) Re-purposeable  Where it failed: 9/11 – dots failed to connect (2001) Indonesian Tsunami (2004) Katrina – incredible lack of comms (2005) Recent Australia fires (2009)  Are we much improved? No.

© 2008 Swan Island Networks 7 Common Alerting Protocol  Art Botterell – California, Contra Costa  Disparate & proprietary systems  Emergency Interoperability Committee  OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards)  Versions 1.1 – Now in NIEM  Adopters:  NOAA, USGS – weather, tsunami, quakes  Comcare Alliance  FEMA – IPAWS  WMO – World weather

© 2008 Swan Island Networks 8 Key CAP Design Principals  Simple  Interoperable  Complete  Multi-use  Familiarity  Interdisciplinary  International

© 2008 Swan Island Networks 9 Some CAP uses today  NOAA (US Weather)  WMO (global weather)  USGS Earthquake  Tsunami Warning  Sensor alerts  feeds  Geo-political alerts  Transportation  Ships (AIS)  Health Alerts  Snow load (WM)  LE Events (raid)  Financial events  Incident mgmt – WEB EOC, ETEAM  FEMA-IPAWS

© 2008 Swan Island Networks 10 TIES – Trusted Information Exchange System  Bias – My product  Visual - Dashboards  Easy to use – little to no training  Trusted Communities - authorized  Built around CAP and other standards  Targeting & filtering  Common and User Defined Operating Picture  Real time, real easy

© 2008 Swan Island Networks 11 Why important for transparency?  Data allows you do what you need  Supports real time notifications  Geospatial alerts – monitor by region, district, neighborhood  Targeting and filtering – get what you want  Systems can interlock with each other easily versus proprietary code or trying to have one system

© 2008 Swan Island Networks 12 Wrap-up  Critical feedback appreciated  