Grandpa Ham – Grandpa Can do IT!

• Yep. I am now an iPhoney. Finally broke down. #
• It's official. DM-OPEN will be the IPAWS aggregator. More info to come…. #
• On an SAIC message board: COD SCAMPI Offsite. Turns out to be CMMI, and not cooked fish. #

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The Fiscal Year 2010 “Interoperable Communications Grant Program, Guidance and Application Toolkit” has just been published. My first question on seeing the grant language was, Did they mandate real interoperable data standards for software purchased using grant money?

They did. From Page 20:

Grant-funded systems, developmental activities, or services related to emergency response information sharing should conform as much as possible with the OASIS Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) suite of data messaging standards and National Incident Management System (NIMS) guidelines. Additional information on data messaging standards and their applicability may be found at www.oasis-open.org. The NIMS Supporting Technology Evaluation Program (NIMS STEP) provides objective evaluations of commercial software and hardware products, and reports on product conformity to standards and NIMS guidelines. Findings from evaluations may be accessed through the Responder Knowledge Base (RKB) website to assist grantees in making purchases. More information on the NIMS STEP can be found at https://www.rkb.us/contentdetail.cfm?content_id=219711.

And Again from page 28 under Technology:

National Information Exchange Model (NIEM). FEMA requires all grantees to use the latest NIEM specifications and guidelines regarding the use of Extensible Markup Language (XML) for all grant awards. Further information about the required use of NIEM specifications and guidelines is available at http://www.niem.gov.

NIEM is XML. EDXL is XML. What gives? Who has precedence? Why is EDXL mentioned in the Funding Restrictions section and NIEM in the Administrative Requirements section?

In reality, you can ignore the apparent confusion. The requirements are valid and complimentary. For the most part, EDXL standards are accepted by NIEM as “approved external standards.” So you do not violate the NIEM requirements by using them, provided you use them as-is, in their entirety. If you use use individual elements (or a subset of elements) from an EDXL schema) in a way that does not validate against one of the schema standards, you are actually violating both EDXL and NIEM unless you document the use of those elements using the formal NIEM Information Exchange Package Documentation (IEPD) methodology as defined at niem.gov. So if you want to use a system that uses EDXL-Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), EDXL- Distribution Element (EDXL-DE), EDXL-Resource Messaging (EDXL-RM), and/or EDXL-Hospital Availability (EDXL-HAVE), go ahead. You are within the terms of the grant language. But if you modify (aka “improve”) the standards in any way, you must go through a formal IEPD process.

If, however you have requirements for information exchange that are not met by existing standards, NIEM offers you the opportunity to reuse existing NIEM IEPDs, build a new IEPD from existing NIEM data definition resources, or build an IEPD from a combination of data definition resources. It is a well-defined process that is designed to maximize reuse and minimize redundancy in data structure definitions supporting emergency management dat exchange requirements.

So, to summarize, if the software you are considering for purchase/development with your grant money reuses EDXL Exchange Standards and/or NIEM IEPDs, you are home free. If not, the system needs to define its exchanges with other systems following NIEM IEPD development rules as found at NIEM.gov

• The December NIEM News publication will contain a short article I wrote, "NIEM IEP Transport is Ready NOW!" Check it out. #

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The link below is to a blog entry by Rick Wimberly concerning all of the alerting systems shown at the IAEM conference in Orlando this week.

http://www.emergencymgmt.com/emergency-blogs/alerts/The-Best-Notification-System.html

The basic premise is that there is no “best” alerting system and that the best alerting system is system of systems for alerting purposes that each have different traits and capabilities. I AGREE WHOLEHEARTEDLY. In fact, the activity where I currently work, FEMA’s Disaster Management Open Platform for Emergency Networks (DM-OPEN), is designed to allow communication between different alerting systems, such that they work together as a system of systems. At the IAEM conference, 10 different systems were using DM-OPEN to share the alerting function and it worked well because all were using the OASIS Common Alerting Protocol as a basis for exchange.

DM-OPEN also showed the ability of multiple systems to share OASIS Emergency Data Exchange Language Distribution Element (EDXL-DE) wrapped content. This content included NIEM IEPD Content (Amber Alerts) and OASIS Hospital Availability, but could also have included any defined data structure known to parties on at least two ends of the exchange. So, does this make DM-OPEN the best emergency information network? I might want to think so, but my thoughts are actually similar to Rick’s. I believe that no single network solution can legitimately call itself the best. Instead, it takes a constantly improving “network of networks” in combination to provide emergency managers with the best information available. In this arena, DM-OPEN does have a place. Because DM-OPEN connectivity is based on publicly available standards, it can connect network to network, as well as system to system as long as those systems are open to standards-based connectivity. So, DM-OPEN is not THE network or THE system. But if anyone else tells you theirs is THE solution, I would say they are blowing smoke, and that they need to learn to work with others.

Respectfully,
Gary “Grandpa” Ham

• Just landed in Orlando for IAEM. Demos and more demos. #

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• Been out for a few days. 2 Goals next week. See some actual DM-OPEN 2.0 code. Find a way for it to provide NIEM code lists dynamically. #

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Attended combined NIEM National Training Event and Oasis Interoperability Summit in Baltimore last week. What a week!!

All of the following Items are from that event:
1. Participated in live demonstrations of interoperability by 11 separate commercial vendors, all using the DM-OPEN Backbone. Messages included Common Alerting Protocol sent from an actual Chorine sensor, NWS Tornado Warnings in CAP with the full polygon showing on maps used by multiple vendors, EDXL-DE wrapped Hospital Availability Messages, and EDXL-DE wrapped NIEM Amber Alert Messages, with accompanying Style sheet and reference base-64 encoded picture data used in full display. A professional videographer filmed the demonstration activities and interviewed key players. The edited video will be made available by OASIS. I will post the link when it is available.
2. Moderated NIEM NTE panel titled “Coordinating the Development and Adoption of Emergency Data Standards With the Ongoing Development of NIEM.” A format of 5 separate questions with short answer to each question by all panel members in turn was well received, both by the panel and the audience. Answers were lively and interesting. There were many audience questions as well. The NIEM organization recorded all panel sessions, so this panel will be available for review in its entirety.
3. Acted as a panel member in a second NIEM NTE panel titled: “Playing Well With Others”—NIEM and External Standards. This was a half session panel that stirred lots of interest and did not afford adequate time for all audience questions. Its recording will also be made available by the NIEM organization. Both panels made is clear that there is real cooperation between standards bodies and progress is being made to ensure that the value of all standards is recognized as a federation real capabilities. While some technical and “turf” issues need to be understood better, the folks involved look forward to the future with a positive attitude and a real belief in success.

Special Thanks to Donna Roy (NIEM Director) and her crew for a great event, and to Bill Kalin (Contractor to DHS Science and Tecnology) and Jane Harnad (OASIS) for organizing a superb demonstration and to all of the vendors for showing real interoperability in action. Standards do work!!!

• Baltimore at NIEM Training Event and OASIS Interop Summit. My job: EM-TC face-to-face, live interop demos, and 2 panels(1 as moderator) #

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• Need a primeer on the #OASIS #EDXL Distribution Element? http://bit.ly/143BDm #

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• Time facts 08:00-04:00 equals 07:00-05:00. Counter intuitive, but true (the minuses are offsets from GMT). #

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