Grandpa Ham – Grandpa Can do IT!

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

For those of you who wonder if Grandpa Ham is really a grandpa, here they are! Two of my three sons and all 5 grandson on the same couch. What a bunch of Hams!

My youngest son is the pitching coach for a great AAU Baseball Team. This Weekend they won 5 games in three days to win the Virginia AAU State championship for the second year in a row. Daddy (me) would say it was my son’s coaching . Grandpa (me again) would say that it was a LOT more than that. Great Kids, Great Parents, and Great Teamwork. There are stars, but everyone contributes. These are special folks. Check the link to their site. http://virginiadiamonds.org/index.html
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Looks like I will stay with the DMV through October at least.  I am currently writing the formal process documentation as well as helping the DMV folks prepare for collaborative design activity with their chosen development vendor (still TBD).  This is truly a big project.  We have identified over 1000 business use cases so far.  The software use cases to be built over the next few years my reach 10000 although half of them will probably be out of scope initially.  Comprehensive to say the least.   Wow!

Spent the last couple of weeks helping to design a single place in the logical data structure for all aspects of information a DMV might want to consider. The Customer Information Quality Specification from OASIS provided the basic structure, but a lot of new material is needed to make it work. The key is to allocate the data to the correct place in a hierarchy of Party Types and to the roles that are “playable” by each type. It is a thought provoking exercise. It also make you well aware of the potential data quality pitfalls of mis-allocating data to a less advantageous entity within the overall data architecture. (Note to readers: this is just the beginning ov some very cool stuff.)