DHS Disaster Management - Open Platform for Emergency Networks (DM-OPEN)
- What is the Disaster Management e-Gov Initiative?
- The Disaster Management is a Federal e-Gov Initiative designed "to help citizens and members of the emergency management community at the local, tribal, state, and Federal levels by improving public safety response through more effective and efficient interoperable data communications and to serve as a unified point of access to disaster preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery information."
- What is DM-OPEN?
- DM-OPEN is a non-proprietary operational interoperability backbone that acts as a "level playing field" to allow disparate third-party applications, systems, networks and devices to share information in a non- proprietary, open, standards based format. As Federal infrastructure, DM-OPEN is designed to support the delivery of real-time data and situational awareness to public emergency responders in the field, at operation centers and across all levels of response management. DM-OPEN serves as test bed to facilitate the development of open non- proprietary standards to support interoperable information sharing for the emergency responder community.
- How does DM-OPEN Work?
- OPEN provides a vetted SOAP and HTTP web services for interoperability between clients of multiple “flavors.” As a network of networks it also provides a vetted non-proprietary SOAP connection to other networks which may retransmit messages as appropriate to thier network.
- What web services does DM-OPEN offer?
- Services based on OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee XML Schema Standards:
- Common Alerting Protocol (CAP)
- Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) Distribution Element (DE)
- Hospital Availability Exchange (HAVE) (in development)
- Resource Messaging (in development)
- HazCollect (specialized CAP message designed for broadcast over NOAA weather Radio)
- What does this mean to you?
- If you offer a commercial product or are building a custom application that needs to communicate with other applications to share basic alerts (CAP) or complicated emergency file structures (EDXL-DE), DM-OPEN offers a "write once, use many" interface that uses recognized international standards. If you wish to offer your customers a way to direct connect to the National Weather service for the purpose of broadcasting non-weathere emergency messages on NOAA radio, DM-OPEN is the place.
- What Can Grandpa do?
- I have tested prototype code In Java for each of the DM-OPEN interfaces that can be customised for your application. If you have an application that creates a valid CAP alert, a valid HazCollect profiled CAP message, or wraps content in an EDXL DE, I can get you connected to a variety of different applications with just two days of consulting time. If you need help with constructing the message, I can help with that as well. I can also assist with remote testing. Give me a call.
Grandpa Can Do IT!!