Grandpa Ham – Grandpa Can do IT!

• IPAWS-OPEN 2.0 has 21 company/organizations approved for testing. It is all moving forward. #
• Going home on VRE from DC. Meetings with CTIA on CMAS and PSAP vendor on IPAWS. If you know the acronyms, you know there is progress. #

• RT @trevbhatt Dyslexic devil worshippers sell their souls to Santa #
• @LosRanchosEM I have no update on Framework. Wish I did. #

I sent out the first 8 sets of credentials to independent interoperable systems this week.  The test environment can now actually be used.  Those of you who are familiar with FEMA procedures know what it took.  Whew!!!!

For those who may not be totally familiar with IPAWS-OPEN, Check my permanent page on IPAWS.

It has finally happened.  The process for getting access to the IPAWS-OPEN 2.0 Test capability is in place.  You must fill out a request questionnaire first.  This questionnaire will soon be available on the FEMA IPAWS web site.  Until it is available, makers/developer/program managers of emergency management software and Alert dissemination systems can send email to “open AT eyestreet.com”  requesting the questionnaire.  We will use that information to construct a Memorandum of  Agreement that you will sign and return to me.  I will obtain a valid Government signature and return the MOA to you along with a programmers Manual, valid system endpoint for the IPAWS 2.0 web services, and an x509 signature to be used in accessing those end points.  Please be patient.  There is some pent-up demand and it will take a while before everyone is taken care of. We will be giving priority to current OPEN operational systems and to EAS dissemination systems that need to help broadcasters meet the infamous “180 day clock.”  But we will get to you.

A note to all of you who have been waiting since January (and before).  We have been given authority.  There is security paperwork to do, but the process is now in place.

Here are the details about the the IPAWS-OPEN Special Interest Group Meeting to be held at noon Eastern Time on wednesday where I will provide further detail  :

Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS)
Open Platform for Emergency Networks (OPEN) 2.0 Test Environment
Wednesday October 20, 12:00 Noon Eastern

During our next Webinar, System Architect Gary Ham will provide the latest information about access requirements for the IPAWS-OPEN 2.0 development test environment, including documentation and reporting requirements.

This program is intended primarily for system developers.  Please make plans to join us via conference bridge and Live Meeting. As always, your questions and comments are welcome.

IMPORTANT: If you have not logged into Live Meeting before, check out the following connection instructions and participant guidelines prior to next week’s meeting:
http://www.fema.gov/about/programs/disastermanagement/archive/LiveMtgInstruct.pdf

(1) Login to MS Live Meeting for visuals: The following login link can only be used 30 minutes prior to the scheduled meeting time: https://www.livemeeting.com/cc/eiip/join?id=DMprogram&role=attend

(2) Call into the Conference Bridge number as follows: 1 (800) 366-7242  PIN 3647 6736#.

If you are unable to attend this month’s meeting due to other commitments, a recording will be accessible from the DM Web site.

• News on the process for connecting to IPAWS-OPEN 2.0 test environment should begin to trickle out tomorrow. We have approval!!!! #

As those who follow my infrequent updates about the transition from DM-OPEN 1.0 to IPAWS OPEN 2.0 know, IPAWS OPEN 2.0 will require a fairly significant increase in attention to security (even in the test environment).   So I decided to dig out my old DM-OPEN “tweeter” test code and begin the process of transition to IPAWS-OPEN 2.0.  It no longer works, even against DM-OPEN 1.0.  Twitter has also increased its security requirement for applications that post.  No more basic authentication. You now must use OAuth. So, in order to tweet from IPAWS, I will now have to use WS-Security with x509 signatures to connect to IPAWS-OPEN and OAuth to connect to Twitter.  Ah! Life in the Middle!  Nobody trusts the middleman.  Nor should they, actually. But it sure is a pain in the rear.    :-).

• Success Tweeting Headlines from IPAWS-OPEN Alerts. Follow @dmopenstate if you want to be spammed during the upcoming demos. #

Rick Wimberly’s Emergency Management blog identifies the fact that I stated that IPAWS-OPEN could make international connections. BUT………
U.S. regulations make inter-nation connectivity fairly difficult, if not impossible, unless there are treaties and/or formal diplomatic agreements in place. So, it can work with Canada where we have both agreements in place and a real need for cross-border civilian population alerting. With other nations… not so much. Just a clarification.

We used to advertise that DM-OPEN 2.0 would be released this summer and that its follow-on would be IPAWS-OPEN 3.0. We have changed our mind (with good reason). OPEN 2.0 will be IPAWS-OPEN 2.0. IPAWS takes full control of OPEN in mid September. Version 2.0 will be fully functional in terms of basic IPAWS architecture and will be used for IPAWS sponsored demonstrations, interoperability events, etc. OPEN version 3.0 will be needed for Cellular Mobile Alerting Services (CMAS), full compatibility with Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) version 1.2, and full compliance with the IPAWS Profile. Still, a lot of basic capabilities required for IPAWS can be done with OPEN 2.0. It can be used for text based Emergency Alert System (EAS) messages, National Weather Service Non-Weather Emergency Messages, and can be a basis for development by vendors of all types that wish to use a non-proprietary system and protocol for the exchange of messages that use Emergency Data Exchange Language Distribution Element (EDXL-DE) and/or CAP. (And do not forget that National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) Information Exchange Packages (IEP) make excellent content objects inside an EDXL-DE.)