Amy Sebring: On behalf of Avagene and myself, welcome to the EIIP Virtual Forum!
Our topic today is "The OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee:
Advancing Incident Management with Open XML Standards."
Amy Sebring: OASIS stands for "Organization for the Advancement of Structured
Information Standards," and is a not-for-profit, global consortium that ...
Amy Sebring: "produces worldwide standards for security, Web services, XML
conformance, business transactions, electronic publishing, topic maps and
interoperability within and between marketplaces."
Amy Sebring: Before we get started, for the benefit of any first-timers, we will
go over the order of business. We will begin today's session with a
presentation, and then we will proceed to your questions. We will provide
further instructions just before we begin the Q&A section ...
Amy Sebring: Please do not send private messages to our speaker or the
moderator, as we will be busy with the presentation. If you need assistance,
you may send a private message to Avagene Moore.
Amy Sebring: The transcript of today's session will be available by this evening
-- just check back on our home page. Please note that I will provide a number
of links in the transcript to the material we will be discussing today. For
starters, here is the Web site for the Technical Committee ...
Amy Sebring: http://www.oasis-
open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=emergency
Amy Sebring: Now, I am pleased to introduce our speaker, R. Allen Wyke, the
Technical Committee Chair. Allen is also the Chief Technology Officer of
Blue292, a leading Crisis Information Management System (CIMS) software provider
for the Incident Process Management (IPM) space.
Amy Sebring: Mr. Wyke has also published a dozen books and numerous articles on
various Internet technologies such as XML, JavaScript, .NET, and Perl. Please
note that his email address is posted on the Web page if you wish to follow up
with him after the session.
Amy Sebring: Welcome Allen, we are very pleased to have you with us today, and I
now turn the floor over to you.
R. Allen Wyke: Thanks Amy, and thanks to all who have joined us today. Today, we
are going to talk about the OASIS Emergency Management Technical Committee (EM
TC), when it started, where we are going, and provide a current status.
R. Allen Wyke: The EM TC first saw light within the EM-XML Consortium, which was
announced in October 2002. The Consortium's effort is focused on researching,
designing, developing, and evangelizing standards in the world of incident and
emergency management.
R. Allen Wyke: Since its inception, the group has attracted the attention of
numerous public and private companies, individuals, and agencies currently
totaling a representation in excess of 40 institutions. To increase focus and
ensure the success of our efforts ...
R. Allen Wyke: the Consortium formed an Executive Committee (EC), Chaired by
Matt Walton of E Team, and a Technical Committee, which I Chair. The EM TC,
which we will be discussing today, is chartered with building XML standards
within OASIS - a well-known standards body.
R. Allen Wyke: Before I begin discussing the EM TC, let me take 1 minute to talk
about XML and standards. XML, which stands for the eXtensible Markup Language is
a W3C Recommendation (i.e., standard) that allows us to define "languages."
R. Allen Wyke: These languages are represented as "tags", which are then wrapped
around data, such as in stuff. By including these tags,
programs are able to better process any data being exchanged...
R. Allen Wyke: which therefore reduces the amount of effort end users must apply
to understand what, where, how, and why data looks or is processed a certain
way. In the little example we just provided, it is,for instance, easy to see the
"stuff" is important.
R. Allen Wyke: Armed with XML as a means to create languages to describe data,
we are able to standardize on how to share data in much the same way industries
have standardized on everything from the color of major appliances and car tire
sizes, to electrical plugs and phone jacks.
R. Allen Wyke: Sure, there are variations, but they are minor when compared to a
world where we all had our own standards. On to the EM TC...
R. Allen Wyke: The purpose of the EM TC is to design, develop, and release XML
Schema-based standards that begin to solve real-world incident management
problems. These standards not only provide a framework for data exchange ...
R. Allen Wyke: but also for functionality and service accessibility, all with
the common goal of future seamless application and data interoperability. Our
charter not only defines this purpose, but it also outlines our deliverables for
2003.
R. Allen Wyke: These deliverables included the researching of existing standards
and standards bodies (Q1 2003), first draft of the first XML-based standard (Q2
2003), compliance test suite, scenarios, and best practices to be used by
implementers (Q3 2003), and committee approval of our first specification (Q4
2003).
R. Allen Wyke: Since the first meeting of the EM TC, on February 11, 2003, the
group has created a Requirements document to outline our Phase 1 tactical
efforts. Out of this document, which is accessible from the OASIS Website ...
R. Allen Wyke: the EM TC has formed three initial Sub-committees (SC) in the
areas of Notification and Messaging (EM MSG), Infrastructure Framework (EM IF),
and Geospatial Information Systems (EM GIS).
R. Allen Wyke: In addition to these initial areas of focus, the EM TC has also
identified the following as a priority for Phase 2: asset and resources
management; areas around financial tracking; areas around public health...
R. Allen Wyke: It is with great pleasure that I announce we are right on
schedule with our deliverables and expect to have a formalized Working Draft of
the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) released by the end of June.
R. Allen Wyke: Many of you may have heard of CAP, which has been brought in
under the TC by Art Botterell (who is with us today), who is now the Chair of
the EM MSG SC and is representing the Partnership for Public Warning. This group
is working on sharing alerts, notifications, and ICS information in a standard
way.
R. Allen Wyke: While Art and his team are hammering away at CAP, the EM GIS SC,
which is Chaired by Eliot Christian of the Department of the Interior, has a
short term objective of providing GIS expertise to CAP. Like any work in this
space, we want to ensure our standards...
R. Allen Wyke: have the proper geospatial influence to be fully utilized by
applicable GIS-enabled applications. In addition, the EM GIS team is also
ensuring we stay on top of other GIS-related standards efforts, such as those at
the OpenGIS Consortium (OGC), as they related to emergency management.
R. Allen Wyke: Last, but certainly not least, our EM IF SC, which is Chaired by
Rick Carlton of E Team, is currently helping CAP in the areas of encryption,
authentication, and overall security. Basically, making sure the CAP standard
can get from point A to point B in a safe and secure way.
R. Allen Wyke: Long term, the group will begin to define the necessary
infrastructure framework to facilitate end-to-end emergency and incident data
and service interoperability.
R. Allen Wyke: So, what does all of this techno-babble mean? How does it really
help and impact what you all do day-to-day? Why should you care? First, it means
major emergency and incident software vendors are creating standards that will
allow our applications to work together better.
R. Allen Wyke: To illustrate this point, how many software applications do you
have, but can no longer use because it does not connect with another system or
it is built on a proprietary platform you can not extend?
R. Allen Wyke: Have you had instances where you liked the GIS technology from
Company A, incident management software from Company B, and alerting technology
from Company C, but they did not all work together? Our efforts will help in
these scenarios.
R. Allen Wyke: Second, how many times have you funded a custom project only to
find out your governing CIO or Director has standardized on a different approach
your project was unaware of?
R. Allen Wyke: Since this is an open standard, it means even your own projects,
engineers, and/or developers can create applications to support these standards.
And, by supporting the standards, these applications now inherit some of the
benefits of being standards-based...
R. Allen Wyke: For instance, they interoperate with other applications - ones
you didn't have to write. This is another area the EM TC efforts will benefit
you.
R. Allen Wyke: At the end of the day, I do not think anyone would argue that we
are in need of advancements in the area of emergency and incident management to
automate some of the more mundane tasks.
R. Allen Wyke: To automate in order to allow experts, like yourselves, to do
what you do best, which is manage and/or respond to events. You shouldn't have
to worry about how to get a hold of Bob or make sure Susie has the right
information, yet you do.
R. Allen Wyke: While our efforts at the EM TC does not solve all the world's
problems, even a 10% improvement in the situation can save assets and lives, and
we accomplish this by taking one strategic step at a time.
R. Allen Wyke: I will leave it there, and we can get more into your areas of
interest based on your questions, for which I turn the session back over to our
Moderator.
Amy Sebring: Thank you very much Allen. Our protocol for audience questions is
to enter a question mark ? to indicate you wish to ask a question or make a
comment.
Howard Berkowitz: ?
Amy Sebring: Then go ahead and compose your question or comment to have it
ready, but do NOT hit your Enter key or click on the Send button until you are
recognized by name. Please WAIT your turn.
Amy Sebring: We will take questions in the order the question marks are sent to
the screen. One question at at time please. If you have a follow up, please
get back on line with a ? We are ready to begin now.
Ken Gill: ?
Amy Sebring: Ken, when you are ready please.
David Beddoe: ?
Charles Werner: ?
Ken Gill: Are computer aided dispatch systems considered in the suite of
incident software applications?
Amy Sebring: (sorry I missed Howard and will come back)
R. Allen Wyke: That is an excellent question Ken, let me try to answer...
Charles Werner: What impact will XML have to existing notification services that
are free of charge to the public
R. Allen Wyke: What we, and I am sure most of you, have found is that the range
of applications, services, tools, resources, etc. that span the world of
"incident" is vast. There are MANY different applications that can fall into
this category...
R. Allen Wyke: ...CAD certainly has a role within IPM (Incident Process
Management) and general emergency management.
Amy Sebring: Howard now please.
Howard Berkowitz: We develop healthcare applications that are finding increasing
emergency use. At present, we use HL7 Version 2.x...
R. Allen Wyke: "How" it applies, can vary, as you might imagine.
Howard Berkowitz: which is non-XML, but version 3 is going XML. Two-part
question: to what extent do you look at HL7 at all, and does XML-HL7 come under
your scope?
R. Allen Wyke: Another good question...
R. Allen Wyke: In our original efforts to research other standards efforts, as
well as industries/verticals, where emergency and incident management was
applicable...
R. Allen Wyke: ...we identified, very quickly, that health care was an area. We
also spoke specifically about HL7 and where it fit in....
Howard Berkowitz: we've been generalizing its idea of "patient" to include both
victims, as well as responders that the safety officer has to track
Avagene Moore: ?
R. Allen Wyke: In order to try and bite off an area that we could focus on and
address, we created a Requirements document that outlines our initial (aka Phase
1) focus as well as referenced our secondary (Phase 2) focus. Health care fell
into the Phase 2, but we do have the EM IF SC looking into now to be ready.
Amy Sebring: David next please.
David Beddoe: Amy - Please consider saving this Transcript and distributing to
participants. Thank you.
Amy Sebring: Yes, transcript will be available. More on that at the end.
Amy Sebring: Charles next please
Charles Werner: What impact will XML have on existing notification services that
are presently provided free of charge to the public?
Charles Werner: ?
Paul Lebar: ?
R. Allen Wyke: Going right for the punch! Good question Charles...
R. Allen Wyke: ...The idea isn't so much that XML will/should affect, in any
way, these types of services, but rather make it easier for the creator/vendor
to offer services. In a nutshell, if supporting a single (or even a few)
standards allows them to now support 200 different connecting applications...
Charles Werner: Followup - Also, what impact will that occur with the XML, tags
etc during extremely bandwidth limitations during 9/11 like incidents?
Amy Sebring: Please complete your first response and then we will come back to
Charles follow up in a moment.
R. Allen Wyke: then they save money. Even here at Blue292 we interoperate with
other 3rd party vendors. By supporting CAP, as an example, we will be able to
build a single "connector" that can work with others, rather than building one
for each. It reduces my overhead cost of developing software, which makes me
(and my Board) happy :)
Amy Sebring: Avagene is next please.
Avagene Moore: Two questions, Allen: Who and how can folks get involved with the
Technical Committee? Also, how do those of us who are directly involved in the
overall OASIS work stay abreast of its progress?
Avagene Moore: Meant not directly involved.
R. Allen Wyke: To be directly involved, a individual/company must first join
OASIS...
Charles Werner: I understand that we use the Emergency EMail Wireless Network
without XML they will not link, correct?
R. Allen Wyke: At that time, they can join our TC (or any other for that
matter)...
Charles Werner: ?
R. Allen Wyke: As for indirect, individuals can watch our Website, which you
provided earlier. From there you can read email threads, review standards
drafts, and even submit comments through our public email list.
Amy Sebring: Paul next please.
Paul Lebar: Given that there are other standards in existence and currently
under development that address the same need, what will motivate developers to
choose to implement this standard over others
R. Allen Wyke: One of the first things we did was research the standards that
are already in development or deployed....
R. Allen Wyke: In fact, this is an ongoing process. The standards that we are
creating, are actually not addressing the exact same need. We have made great
strides to try and avoid overlap, although the more input we have from others,
the better off we are in fulfilling this objective.
Amy Sebring: Ok, coming back to Charles, he asked about bandwidth limitations
during critical incident response?
R. Allen Wyke: Bandwidth is certainly a concern....
Charles Werner: What impact does XML have during limitations during 9/11 like
incidents
R. Allen Wyke: But is really something that is the responsibility of the
implementor. By that, I mean that we are focused on defining the standards
around the data...
Charles Werner: ?
R. Allen Wyke: ...that allows implementors to exchange information as they need
- something that is currently difficult. If the delivery of that information has
to go over a low bandwidth connection for the "last mile"...
R. Allen Wyke: ...then, the implementor, who would be most versed in the needs
of its "customers", would address that. That being said, our EM IF SC is/will be
making recommendations as to how to achieve this...
R. Allen Wyke: We fully acknowledge, and accept that the more we can provide
implementors in terms of recommendations, best practices, and guides the better
our adoption.
Amy Sebring: And secondly, Charles asked about an application he currently uses,
the Emergency Email Wireless Network.
Amy Sebring: Perhaps, the question is how existing applications will utilize the
standard?
R. Allen Wyke: Charles, can you please repeat the question? You are wondering if
this network will work with our standards, is that correct?
Charles Werner: Simply stated, without XML other products will not play,
correct?
Charles Werner: ?
Amy Sebring: ?
Howard Berkowitz: ? followup on bandwidth
R. Allen Wyke: Not necessarily...
Jeff Silberberg: ?
R. Allen Wyke: ...What XML provides is a "standard" way to communicate. Think of
any highway. The paved road "standardizes" how you get from A to B - it provides
some structure....
R. Allen Wyke: Yes, vendors can go "off road" and not support standards, and
they can even have a good reason too, but the majority of applications benefit
from it....
J. W. Tamargo: ?
R. Allen Wyke: ...that being said, for existing services, applications, etc. we
are trying to create standards that make their current and future products
easier to create and provide better value.
Amy Sebring: Allen, when you researched existing standards, did you just
research technical standards, or did you also research standards of professional
practice for example? If so, what did you find and how will it fit into the
development of the XML standard?
R. Allen Wyke: Can you please define "professional practice"? Are you referring
to process/methodology for creating standards?
Amy Sebring: I am referring to how incident responders/emergency managers do
their jobs.
R. Allen Wyke: Understood....
R. Allen Wyke: In developing our standards, we do not just start with XML. We
actually spend a significant amount of time understanding the "problem"....
R. Allen Wyke: During this, we develop what we [engineers/developers] call use
cases. For instance, how would CAP be used in sending weather alerts?...
Gary Ham: ?
R. Allen Wyke: These use cases provide a real world scenario where our standard
would/could be applied. This helps ensure what we are building works.
Art Botterell: (comment?)
Amy Sebring: Go ahead please Art.
Art Botterell: One of the challenges in this work is getting both the best
technical expertise and the best practical ("subject expert") professional
insights...
Art Botterell: and we're constantly working, in a variety of ways (including
sessions like this) to make sure that both perspectives are fully represented...
Art Botterell: but just for clarity, we aren't trying to rework emergency
management practices, just support them better!
Amy Sebring: Thanks Art. Let's come back to Howard's follow up question re
bandwidth. Howard go ahead please.
Howard Berkowitz: XML lends itself to application-level compression, at a couple
of levels...binary tags established at session setup, and compressed information
formats ID'd by tags...
Howard Berkowitz: is your INF or other W3C group working on this? Example...
Charles Werner: (comment)
Howard Berkowitz: You are sending geographic coordinates, , that you know
are internally 16 bits. 12345 is 16 bytes, [esc][code][16 bits] is
4 bytes.
R. Allen Wyke: Good question.....
R. Allen Wyke: What we are focused on, at least initially, is the definition of
the data. The definition of for example...
R. Allen Wyke: however, the EM IF SC is charter with looking at other standards,
such as encryption, compression, etc. that apply to how to use our data
definition standards. So, the short answer is....
R. Allen Wyke: no, we are not defining standards for compression, but the long
answer is yes. We are in fact reviewing and will be making recommendations (not
requiring) to our implementors on what standards to use.
Amy Sebring: Jeff next please. We have 3 more waiting and that will be all we
have time for today.
Jeff Silberberg: Is there going to be a process to certify a vendors
implementation, and will it be Server/Client or product based ?
R. Allen Wyke: Let me try to address that...
R. Allen Wyke: While we are not going to create a new "authority" that certifies
our standards, part of our charter is to provide a test suite for implementors
to test their implementations...
R. Allen Wyke: This is very similar to how the W3C handles HTML/XHTML. While
there is no authority that polices Web site to make sure they are HTML/XHTML
compliant, they do provide a validator if you or your Webmaster wants to see if
their pages are complaint.
Amy Sebring: J.W. next please.
Amy Sebring: Let's go on to Gary please while JW ...
J. W. Tamargo: Since XML is relatively new...how do we know that it is not a
passing fad...and there will be another new standard?
Amy Sebring: oops ok
R. Allen Wyke: Good question....
R. Allen Wyke: XML, especially in today's fast paced computing world, is not as
new as you might think. The first standard was released in Feb 1998, and
considering that mainstream computing didn't hit until 1993 or so....
R. Allen Wyke: Its been around for quite a while. At the same time, Oracle, IBM,
and Microsoft (3 largest software companies in the world) are MAJOR backers of
XML. Just about every single one of their software products support it in some
fashion....
R. Allen Wyke: and with the initiatives of .NET (Microsoft) and Web Services in
general (heavy XML usage), it is definitely here for a while.
Amy Sebring: Gary now please.
Gary Ham: This is more of a comment on the professional standards question from
another TC member...
Amy Sebring: That's fine Gary, thanks.
Amy Sebring: (please continue)
Gary Ham: Presidential Directive 25 calling for a National Incident Management
System (NIMS) cals for Incident Command System processes to be followed...
Gary Ham: We are defining our work based on the processes in the manuals and the
contents of the forms (where it seems to make sense)...
Gary Ham: I guess you could say the ICS process is a sort of sanity checker for
our work.
Amy Sebring: Thanks Gary. comment Allen?
R. Allen Wyke: That is a good point Gary (who is a MAJOR contributor to our
efforts by the way). ICS is something Art's group (EM MSG SC) is reviewing, and
most certainly HSPD-5 is on our radar.
Amy Sebring: And finally, Charles, last comment quickly please?
Charles Werner: I did not get a clear picture on XML and bandwidth during 9/11
like incidents, if everyone ties in what happens when there is little if any
bandwidth available??? and MS says that there is a significant hurdle to
recognize XML's full potential
Amy Sebring: Thanks Charles.
Amy Sebring: That's all we have time for today. Thank you very much Allen, and
we wish you every success in your efforts. Please stand by a moment while we
make some quick announcements ....
Dave Helmrich: XML will allow companies (as I understand), to expose data to
queries from other sources (i.e. EPA). This way the EPA can obtain HAPs, VOCs,
etc. electronically. Am I understanding this?
Amy Sebring: If you are not currently on our mailing list, and would like to get
program announcements and notices of transcript availability, please see the
Subscribe link on our home page.
Amy Sebring: Again, the transcript will be posted later this afternoon and you
will be able to access it from our home page.
Amy Sebring: We have two new partners since our last session, one of whom is an
old and dear friend (who remains ever young!)
Amy Sebring: Sand City (CA) Police Department, POC: Russell Coile, PhD, CEM,
Disaster Service Coordinator, URL: http://www.sandcity.org/police/index.html
Amy Sebring: We also welcome a new friend, City of Grand Prairie (TX)
Environmental Services Department, POC: Jennifer Vuitel, Environmental
Educational Specialist , URL: http://www.gptx.org/envsrvcs/eshome.asp
Avagene Moore: Amy, if I may interject, we also have one other - The newest EIIP
Partner is "Office Nurse PRN" with Fran McAfee Rosenberger, RN, Owner, serving
as the EIIP POC. Fran is with us today. Fran does not currently have a Web
site.
Amy Sebring: Thanks Ava. If your organization is interested in becoming an EIIP
Partner, please see the Partnership link on our home page.
Amy Sebring: Thanks to everyone for participating today. Our session is
adjourned but before you go, please help me show our appreciation to Allen for a
fine job.