Grandpa Ham – Grandpa Can do IT!

I wrote a poller for DM-OPEN that posts alerts received in DM-OPEN to the prototype Unified Incident Command and Decision Support System (UICDS).  This gives posters of Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) alerts the option of using DM-OPEN as a mechanism for also posting to UICDS for use by systems connected to that capability.  Two successful demonstrations to date: a month or so ago at the Virginia Department of Emergency Management and today in McClean, Virginia for some folks from DHS.  We posted alerts from NC4′s E-Team, CellCast’s Eagle, MyStateUSA, and DMIS Tools (also a DM offering) to UICDS where the alerts were provided to to a UICDS RSS feed and plotted on maps using Alert Sense (where proper locations were identified in the input CAP message).

The message:  DM-OPEN can be a “connection multiplier” for its interoperability partners.  In this case a single connection yielded 4 new partners (and possibly many more in the future).

It works — Mostly.  I had one of my team members working with me on Disaster Management Interoperability Services post OASIS Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) Alerts to a test organization (aka COG for collaborative Operations Group) from 4 very different tools (E-Team, CellCast, MyStateUSA, and DMIS Toolset). He made these posts while I was traveling to California at 36000 feet on a commercial airline that offers wi-fi internet access.  At the same time I was running an application on my laptop inside the airplane that I wrote last week that that polls the DM-OPEN COG which my team member was posting to.  This polling software picked up each of the Alerts and posted them as tweets to my Twitter account (grandpaham). This blog (grandpaham.com) also picks up my tweets in a plug-in on its sidebar from Twitter.   There was one anomaly.  I know that all four of my tweets reached Twitter successfully, because my blog picked them all up successfully. However, one of the Tweets (DMIS  Toolset) did not show on my direct Twitter page.

?????????? My blog retrieved the headline from Twitter, so I know it got there. But my Twitter page did not show it.  So, I have an unanswered question, for sure. Why did Twitter not display the last tweet?

I recently added “tweeting” to my prototyping code base.  I can now poll the DM-OPEN Server for an organization and tweet any new alerts to followers of a given Twitter member.  You can see the results by following “grandpaham” on Twitter.  In fact, you can see it live if you have access to any Emergency Management Software that is compatible with DM-OPE’s CAP alert interface.   If you post an alert to the Interoperability COG, it should show up as a “grandpaham” twitter.  Kudos to the folks who developed twitter4j. The code and examples work as advertised.  Using Twitter can act as a DM-OPEN notification service.

I wrote a little ditty that explains the value of what FEMA’s Disaster management program offers to vendors, open source developers and even contract developers in the Emergency Management and Public Warning Domains. It is a question that users of such software might ask their vendors. Take a look.
See my Contact Info if you would like some help getting started

Are you OPEN? [1]

Can you connect using standards?
Are you open to all?
Or are you a silo?
Using “standards” to stall?

Our open web service
Connects all kinds of apps.
A middleware instance
To share more than “CAPs.”[2]

We have a web service
Based on EDXL [3]
That helps apps connect
Yet encapsulate well.

Hard wired integration
Is not what we do.
You connect via service
As captured by you.

You decide layout
And your design form
But connect to all others
Using standards as norm.

We make it straightforward.
Your connection is clean.
The boundaries work well.
You control what is seen.

You have the power.
We provide pipes,
For transferring data
Of all defined types.

With data described
Using DE [4]
So intelligent routing
Can come to be.

We provide access.
You set the rules
In the tags that you set
In the DE through your tools.

We then connect others
As desired by you.
And they get your data
As you want them to.

They can format the layout
In their own way.
Connected, yet separate
With their own say

Into how to display
And how to reuse
And so can all others
Unless you refuse.

You can work independent,
Yet use standards to share.
The best choice to ensure
Service to all; everywhere.

Gary A. Ham – May 14, 2009

[1] FEMA – Disaster Management Program – Open Platform for Emergency Networks
[2] OASIS Common Alerting Protocol
[3] OASIS Emergency Data Exchange Language
[4] OASIS EDXL Distribution Element

You may think that my contract holder is a big downtown DC firm. Not so, although they do have offices near Dulles, VA. This office, however, is my favorite. And it really is rural. You can see cows from the window. As long as you have big internet pipes, you can work anywhere. Yes, that is me standing out front.

Eye Street - Lincoln Office

I have finally updated my resume to account for the work I have been doing for FEMA since October. Yes I am back to the Disaster Management Program except that I am working for the Program Office instead of on the development contract. A lot of the work is similar and I am glad I can participate. The mission is important. I am now under contract through Eye Street Software Corporation to provide systems engineering support to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Duties include:

• Requirements development and assessment of steps needed to decouple the current Disaster Management Interoperability Services (DMIS) capability into two separate and cooperative capabilities for FEMA. The Disaster Management – Open Platform for Emergency Networks (DM-OPEN) will be a stand alone, standards based Enterprise Service Bus for data communications interoperability across the full spectrum of responder organizations at the Federal, State, Local and Tribal levels. The Current DMIS Toolset will be transformed from its current client server implementation into a web-based framework (the DM-Framework) that houses access to a user-configurable set of emergency management applications.
• Systems Engineering Life Cycle Documentation and Federal Enterprise Architecture compliance management for the DM PMO.
• Response to stakeholder inquiries concerning DM-OPEN, the DM-Framework, and related data standards.
• Assistance to programmers connecting to DM-OPEN Interfaces.
• Liaison with the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), as well as other standards organizations and Federal programs that affect, or are affected by, the Disaster Management Program.

I have been working on the FEMA contract now for about a month. The Disaster Management team is a good team. The project has a real mission of service to those who put their life on the line for the American public every day. Of course it is a Federal program, meaning that it is difficult to coordinate and rife with bureaucratic impediments to immediate success. Of course, because it is a Federal Program, we team members can take a somewhat longer view. We can do a little more planning and actually define requirements before we are off into development land. Better planning versus more bureaucracy. It will be an interesting balance.

I just just singed an agreement to go back to work for DM-OPEN.  I will be sad to leave my friends at the DMV.  They had truly become family to me.  But the Virginia Commonwealth budget issues were just to much to overcome.  Still, I believe they will carry on with a successful redesign project.  I always said that my goal was to become dispensable.  I guess It happened just a little earlier than we planned.

Luckily, I have been able to return to my roots in Emergency Management.  I am now working with the folks at Eyestreet Software to revitalize FEMA’s Disaster Management – Open Platform for Emergency Networks.  More later on this very real mission in life.

The Virginia DMV just got another budget whack. It means that I am part-time for a while and eventually no-time, unless they can find a way around the latest hit. Looks like I made a mistake when I did not take the offering I referred to in my 30 August post. It was a mistake of loyalty. I am going to miss the folks I worked with a lot. So, I am now available full-time to for any other folks who might have a use for my help. DMV references are available.

The new poller/poster for FEMA’s Open Platform for Emergency Networks is now on Source Forge. Lee Tincher from Evolution Technologies reworked some of my old code to make in work directly with both Oracle and MySQL databases. I must admit that his solution is much more robust than my original test code. On the other hand, I did write the foundation connection code. :–) Let’s hope we get a lot of interest. This could make emergency alert sharing in a non-proprietary environment actually work. Even better, lets make it work in a multi-proprietary environment using OASIS EDXL Standards for communication through a level playing field Government supplied middleware infrastructure. This was my dream when I worked on Disaster Management. Maybe it can actually happen.