Reporting Developments of Interest to Stakeholders in
Disaster Management Interoperability Services

CONTENTS:

  1. Update on DMIS
  2. Disaster Management Interoperability Services (DMIS) Outreach
  3. COG Manager's Corner
  4. DisasterHelp.gov Enhancements
  5. Upcoming Events
  6. Upcoming EIIP Virtual Forum
  7. About the Disaster Management E-gov Initiative
  8. About the Interoperations Newsletter

Successful OT&E Testing

On Monday June 20th the DMIS Responder Liaison team sponsored an External Operational Test and Evaluation (OT&E) involving participants in several geographically disbursed locations. This test provided the DMIS team with valuable information about the application’s performance in external environments. Input from OT&E events gives our development team the information they need to build a more robust system.

The DMIS team thanks Matt Bruns, Lynne Benyeda, Ken Lobo, Barbara Reeder, Ajit Vasvani, Adam Royce and Steve Price for their participation in this test. During this specific event we also had 7 internal DMIS team members participating. The testing allowed us to demonstrate the capability of DMIS to share and record incident information with 14 users distributed across the country in real time. DMIS instant messaging was used to record the actions of users throughout the test. Thanks to all of you for responding on such short notice to participate in this important event. We continue to welcome input and participation in OT&E events from our external partners.

DMIS Successful at Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstrations

Each year, the Department of Defense (DoD) holds formal technology trials to assess existing and emerging technologies’ potential for use within DoD. The trials are called Coalition Warrior Interoperability Demonstrations (CWID, see http://www.cwid.js.mil/c/extranet/home ). This year, a group of five CWID ’05 trials formed a partnership to demonstrate data exchange among diverse systems supporting Homeland Security and Homeland Defense. Set-up and trial execution was June 6 through June 24. The partnering trials were:

• Trial 2.47 – JWARN – Joint Warning and Reporting Network
• Trial 2.58 - FRCTS – First Responder Communication and Tracking System
• Trial 2.77 – InfoBridge - HLS Information Bridge
• Trial 3.70 – MI2 - Multi-level-secure Information Infrastructure
• Trial 4.26 – DMIS – Disaster Management Interoperability Services

These trials exchanged Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) standard alerts among eight diverse applications through four “networked” interoperability infrastructures within the context of a 5-day national terrorist attack exercise. CWID assessors determined that all scripted information exchanges among these partnering trials succeeded.

The interoperability infrastructures within the partnership – DMIS, InfoBridge, Alert Framework, and MI2 established a “network of infrastructures” by developing interfaces to/from each other per open interface specifications. The infrastructures shared information via these interfaces and the international standard CAP message structure. While CAP messages are optimized for the alerting aspect of crisis and consequence management, the ability to embed a hyperlink in the CAP message provided limited means of sharing situation awareness information.

The “architecture” for the partnership is shown below. The dark bars with light lettering indicate the four networked infrastructures. The lighter rectangles with dark letters represent the applications and data sources sharing the information.

Collaboration among responder organizations decreases the loss of life and critical infrastructure during incident response. Collaboration among the organizations is best when written information about the incident can be efficiently and effectively shared across organizational and technical boundaries. To this end, Homeland Security Presidential Directive 5 directed the National Incident Management System (NIMS) as the national approach to incident response policy, procedures, and their supporting technologies.

These interoperating trials sought to demonstrate a viable approach to data systems technologies and services supporting the NIMS. Our CWID partners believe that the most affordable and practical approach will NOT be a single large interoperability infrastructure. During the trials, the partnership offered and supported the hypothesis that NIMS data systems technologies should be a network of existing and emerging interoperability infrastructures, each optimized for their own aspect of emergency response. Further, the partnership believes the networked infrastructures should share a super-set of common services for fundamental functions such as transaction management, distribution, access control, alerting, and situation awareness. The partnership hopes that standards for the super-set of common services will be developed through formal standards development organizations such as the OASIS organization and include DoD participation to address military/civil data sharing considerations.

DMIS thanks the partnering trials, CapWIN, Sandia Sensor System, Blue 292, and DisasterHelp.gov for this collaborative effort and looks forward to continued cooperation toward public safety.

Standards Working Group Meeting

The Disaster Management (DM) Program sponsored a Standards Working Group (SWG) meeting on the 21st of June 2005 to review and validate DM’s current standards-related efforts and to evaluate requirements for resource messaging standards. Participants included end user practitioners, industry, incident response agencies and associations, along with other federal standards efforts.

During the meeting, decisions were made about future collaboration and the DM standards development process. Biweekly calls will be coordinated to continue the work and dialogue. Disaster Management will schedule another face to face SWG meeting in the coming months to capitalize on the excellent progress and momentum built in this meeting.

DMIS Outreach Activities

• DM attended the Conference of Mayors in Chicago to inform attendees on DM efforts and gain buy-in to the program.
• Staff provided a DMIS briefing to the InterAgency Board (IAB) in Reno, Nevada.
• DM attended “Be Aware! Be Prepared! Individual Preparedness Fair” at the State Department.
• DM continued work with Citizen Corps after providing DMIS briefing and demonstration.
• Members of the DM staff participated in the June 22-23 National Academy of Sciences roundtable discussions on Information Technology to Enhance Disaster Management.
• DM met with Department of Defense (DoD) Project Guardian to discuss DMIS implementation and National Incident Management System (NIMS) compliance.
• Staff met with the Emergency Interoperability Consortium (EIC) to discuss demonstration opportunities.
• DM continued training for the new communities recently added to the left navigation bar of DisasterHelp.gov.
• DM provided DMIS demonstration to Department of State and OMB representatives; also provided a tour of the data center to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the US Marshall Service.

3. COG Manager's Corner

Distribution of the new DMIS Web Services Release Version 2.2 is complete and available for download from the DMIS Web site at http://www.dmi-services.org/dmishp_what_is_dmis.html. Due to a delay in delivery from the manufacturer, we expect to ship CDs by mid-July to those COGs requesting them. We apologize for any inconvenience that this has caused those of you awaiting delivery of a CD. Because of this delay, we did not shut down operation of DMIS v2.1.1 on June 30 and will maintain concurrent operation of DMIS v2.1.1 with the new DMIS v2.2 until a week after shipment of the CDs. After that, the update utility for DMIS v2.1.1 will be configured so that users attempting to launch that version will automatically be taken to the download site for DMIS v2.2.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are a DMIS COG Administrator and have not received any emails concerning distribution of the new release, it is vitally important that you update your contact information by emailing Rick Hauschildt immediately so that we can get in touch with you.

If you encounter local problems with downloading or installing the new release, please email our Help Desk at help@dmi-services.org or call them at 1-800-451-2647.

The DMIS Responder Liaison Team continues to urge all COGs to become thoroughly familiar with the DMIS Tools by regularly exercising and training within your local communities as well as collaborating with other DMIS COGs. The time to become proficient is before an actual incident occurs. If you have any questions related to DMIS COG development, DMIS Tools use, the status of a DMIS registration request, or information on other registered DMIS COGs in your area, please call or email Rick Hauschildt, DMIS COG Manager, at (540) 288-5671.

4. DisasterHelp.gov Enhancements

The DisasterHelp.Gov portal is constantly updated and enhanced to serve the nation’s first responders. To register, go to https://disasterhelp.gov/portal/jhtml/index.jhtml .

What’s New at DisasterHelp.gov?

The Disaster Management E-Gov Initiative (DM) provided the following updates, support and / or outreach related to the growth and use of DisasterHelp.Gov:

• USFA: Registered National Native American Fire Chiefs Association (NNAFCA) members to receive Infograms.
• Continuity of Operations Plans (COOP): Coordinated meeting for additional administrative training.
• Social Security Administration (SSA): Added new sub-community administrators.
• Emmitsburg Emergency Management Institute (EMI): Conducted DisasterHelp overview and training; set up NIMS sub-community in the Collaboration Center.
• FEMA Region VIII Regional Interagency Steering Committee (RISC): Helped administrator register users and configure Collaboration Area Knowledge Center.
• Updated Welcome Messages.
• Created new accounts and verified new users.
• Completed Bulk Registration Interface.

August 28-31, 2005: 2005 Annual National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) Conference. Anchorage Alaska. http://www.nemaweb.org

September 6-9, 2005: 2005 Conference of the Floodplain Management Association. Sacramento, California. For more information, see http://www.floodplain.org/.

September 11-14, 2005: 2005 Western States Seismic Policy Council (WSSPC) Annual Conference. Sponsors: U.S. Geological Survey, FEMA. Boise, Idaho. For more information, visit http://www.wsspc.org/Events/ac2005/.

September 11-14, 2005: American Public Works Association (APWA) International Congress and Expo -The Best Show in Public Works. Minneapolis, Minnesota. Email: congress@apwa.net; http://www.apwa.net/meetings/congress/2005/.

September 12–14, 2005: ESRI Homeland Security GIS Summit. Denver, Colorado. For more information, email hssummit@esri.com; http://www.esri.com/events/homeland/.

September 12-16, 2005: National Floodproofing Conference III. Sponsors: Association of State Floodplain Managers (ASFPM), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers National Nonstructural Flood Proofing Committee, FEMA, FloodMaster Barriers, Inc. Charleston, West Virginia. See http://www.floods.org/Conferences,%20Calendar/nfpc3.asp.

September 25-29, 2005: Dam Safety 2005. Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO). New Orleans, Louisiana. See http://www.damsafety.org/.

6. Upcoming EIIP Virtual Forum

Welcome to the EIIP!

The EIIP Virtual Forum provides 'live chat' presentations and interactive Q&A with subject matter experts on timely topics on two Wednesdays each month, 12:00 Noon EDT. Please visit the EIIP Virtual Forum homepage http://www.emforum.org or subscribe to the EIIP Mail List via the Homepage to monitor upcoming topics for July / August 2005.

No advance registration or user account is required; use the Chat Login link on the EIIP home page at http://www.emforum.org. NOTE: The Forum is using new chat software. Please check your connection prior to your first meeting with us; you may need to download the latest version of JAVA.

About the EIIP: The EIIP is an educational non-profit association of individuals and organizations seeking to enhance their effectiveness in coping with disasters and emergency situations by exploring the opportunity for sharing information and ideas made possible by electronic technology. The EIIP also shares its vision and educational opportunities through the EIIP Community on the DisasterHelp.gov Web site http://www.disasterhelp.gov .

7. About the Disaster Mangement E-gov Initiative (DisasterHelp.gov and DMIS)

The Disaster Management E-Gov Initiative is part of the President's Management Agenda for making government more focused on people and results. Its goal is to provide an easy-to-use, unified point of access to disaster management knowledge, services and toolsets to achieve an accelerated and improved quality of disaster mitigation and response. There are two major parts of the initiative: Disaster Management Interoperability Services (DMIS) and the DisasterHelp.Gov portal. DMIS is focused on the responder/emergency management profession, while the portal provides information and services to citizens, business, federal, state, and local government and non-profit organizations relating to disaster and emergency response.

8. About the Interoperations Newsletter

The Interoperations Newsletter reports on the developments of interest for the disaster management community. Reader comments, questions, and notifications to cancel this newsletter can be forwarded directly to the Editor, Avagene Moore at (931) 762-4768, or the Responder Liaison, Scott Eyestone, at (540) 288-5622; or provided via the DMI-Services Web site at http://www.cmi-services.org/. Your feedback is welcome and appreciated.