|
UICDS keeps you better informed so you can make better decisions. UICDS is information sharing middleware for NIMS incident management that continuously receives and shares standardized data among many agencies during an incident. Your everyday application gets from UICDS exactly the data you need to use, visualize, process, improve, decide, and then share back through UICDS to keep everyone informed.
Because UICDS is middleware, there is no new user interface to learn, no cost to obtain it, and you retain complete control over your data. You get notified when an agency has provided new or updated incident data and you share your data with whom you want instantaneously and in the background without any disruption to your operation.
With UICDS you are better informed, your partners are better informed, and together you all make better response decisions. |
|
Watch
UICDS The Movie
|
|
Get UICDS Free from the Department of Homeland Security
Apply to be a UICDS Pilot and get your own complete UICDS installation, including support, to improve your information sharing. Make your request now. |
|
Get UICDS Free from the Department of Homeland Security
Apply to be a UICDS Pilot and get your own complete UICDS installation, including support, to improve your information sharing. Make your request now. |
Learn All About UICDS Interoperability Middleware in Just Two Minutes
Your time is valuable, so here it is in a nutshell.
UICDS is middleware to share information among applications used by all levels of government and critical infrastructure to manageincidents. UICDS has no end-user interface, so there is no training or new applications to buy.
You should care about UICDS if you manage emergencies or provide technologies to those who manage emergencies.
Click here for a two minute video introduction of UICDS from the UICDS.us website. |
Follow UICDS on LinkedIn
UICDS is now on LinkedIn, the premier business-related social networking site. The site is self-described as the "unofficial UICDS discussion group" among Technology Providers and End-Users. To join the discussion group,  |
| UICDS Contacts
General Information
uicds@dhs.gov
DHS S&T Program Manager Michael B. Smith Email Now DHS S&T Program Support Tomi` Finkle Email Now UICDS Project Manager Chip Mahoney Email Now UICDS Outreach Director James W. Morentz, Ph.D. Email Now |
|
|
UICDS Update
The Department of Homeland Security Information Sharing Technology Program
June 7, 2011 In this issue ...
|
 |
 New UICDS Administrative Console - Preview Tutorial Call This Thursday, June 9 at Noon ET
The UICDS Administrative Console allows System Adminstrators to manage their local UICDS Core. Improvements to the Administrative Console have been made to enhance the ability of System Administrators to manage their UICDS connections, view the Work Products currently active on the UICDS Core, and understand the current health and status of the UICDS Core.
A new version of the UICDS Admin Console will be released shortly. Below is a look at some of the capabilities and our call this Thursday will focus on previewing the new UICDS Admin Console. 
The UICDS Admin Console has always shown what was happening on the Core. Here is a view of administering Agreements.
The new Work Product view includes not only the Digest and Metadata but also now all the fields in the Fractional Data payload.
The biggest improvement to the new UICDS Admin Console is the Health and Status view giving a look at all the components of a complete UICDS implementation.
So join us to learn all about the new UICDS Admin Console.
As always, we will have our popular "open mic" session on our Thursday call where you can ask anything about anything. And get answers from the UICDS Team experts.
To join the tutorial and our biweekly call:
Call 800-366-7242 and use code 735108 at noon ET. Web Collaboration: Click here and enter Conference Reference: 601203 Attendee PIN: 1143
|
|
View From The Field - Thoughts On the UICDS NLE 11 Technology Showcase
Richard Wells of the Las Vegas Office of Emergency Management was one of many people who took advantage of our offer to observe the UICDS NLE 11 Technology Showcase through either Google Earth or the ESRI Flex Viewer. Below are excerpts from Richard's note to Joel Myhre who worked with the Direct Relief International UICDS Pilot in the Technology Showcase and Jim Morentz, UICDS Outreach Director:
"Hey Joel and Jim. Although I was not able to participate in the NLE 11 exercise I was able to login to the UICDS Flex Viewer and look around a bit. First off my thanks to both of you for affording the access to the flex viewer for the exercise - it gave me plenty of ideas and examples to illustrate to my Emergency Manager here at the city.
"Performance was the first thing that caught my attention - I found the drawing speeds and address lookup to be excellent...
"I was also both impressed and amazed at the presentation of the information from the UICDS incidents and alerts buttons. The Flex Viewer is the perfect presentation tool to use spatial content to illustrate what is going on and where. The call out boxes were very easy to read and to work around while zooming, panning etc. The content with embedded links and other key incident information was also very impressive.
"Having been challenged for years here at the local level to develop and implement a workflow with an end result like this has me very interested in the nuts and bolts that made all this come together. I have seen some good implementations of commercial incident management software in operation but nothing even close to this!
"Thanks to you Joel I have been able to tap into a few briefs on UICDS but still am very thin on the process and workflow etc. I am very much interested in learning more about it as far as how the information from the field, EOC and other locations were able to get synced up and presented in such an impressive format.
"That is some great work - I appreciate the exposure to it!!! Thank you both and your teams for making that possible!" |
|
UICDS NLE 11 Technology Showcase Review Now Available on UICDS Collaboration Platform at UICDS.us
On our last UICDS Tutorial and Biweekly Call we reviewed the UICDS NLE 11 Technology Showcase and heard about the participation of:
- ElanTech's Kentucky Mobile Information Source Response during a simulated sharing of building collapse cell phone photos at Murray State University
- Draknotas' Blue Force Tracking during a simulated ammonia release into the air in Memphis and the response of police to the incident
- New Jersey Institute of Technology's Common Alerting Protocol message test and crisis information portal during a simulated support response by the New Jersey Business Emergency Operations Center
- The U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) simulated multiple sources of NLE 11 incidents, converted significant CAP alerts into UICDS incidents, and served as an important UICDS Core host for multiple organizations
- Direct Relief International simulated delivery of donated medical and pharmaceutical supplies to clinics in the earthquake zone through sharing of EDXL-RM Resource Commits
- ICWater, an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) water modeling capability, simulated releases of chemicals into both the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers
- EPA's ALOHA chemical air dispersion model simulated industrial accidents involving multiple chemicals
|
|
Your Invitation to Attend a New Jersey Technology Demonstration of UICDS
The US Army Armament Research Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC), NJ Gloucester County Office of Emergency Management, and Drakontas, LLC have extended an invitation to readers of UICDS Update to a technology demonstration of their "Building a Unified Information Framework in Southern New Jersey" initiative on Wednesday, June 22, 2011 at 10:00 AM at the Camden County Fire Academy Emergency Training Center facility located at 420 Woodbury Turnersville Road, Blackwood, NJ 08012.
The goal of the "Building a Unified Information Framework" project is to establish a prototype civilian emergency management system in Gloucester County, NJ that facilitates shared situational awareness and interagency coordination of resources during both day-to-day operations and critical incident events. The approach is to develop a Unified Incident Command Decision Support (UICDS) compatible prototype module for DragonForce, a Blue Force Tracking system, which will enable Gloucester County to be interoperable with military command and control and other local, state and federal incident management systems during joint response and recovery operations.
The technology demonstration will include a scenario involving a CBRNE type incident with 10-15 members of the hazmat response team, occurring in Gloucester County, NJ. The configuration for the demonstration will be to connect multiple decision support applications (DragonForce, E-Team, the Army's Command Post of the Future (CPOF), and Google Earth) to a UICDS Core that shares data between state agencies that are operating in a data fusion role for CBRNE incident management, and be able to automatically generate the response activities and the needed resources.
We would be honored to have you or representatives from your agency attend the demonstration. Please inform Mr. David Yam (ARDEC) who from your agency will attend by COB June 17, 2011. He can be contacted via email at david.yam@us.army.mil or phone 973-724-4089. |
|
ElanTech and Murray State University Talk about Their NLE 11 Experience
ElanTech's IMDSS software deployed in earthquake simulation at Kentucky's Murray State University.
In a press release, ElanTech, Inc. described the successful deployment of its Incident Management Decision Support System (IMDSS) software during FEMA's National Level Exercise 2011 (NLE 11) disaster simulation conducted at Murray State University. The exercise involved participation by the Murray State University Police, Murray City Fire Department, Calloway County Fire Department local search, rescue and ambulance services, American Red Cross personnel and volunteer victims.
The key application in the exercise was IMDSS, a software tool that aggregates diverse information pertinent to the management of an emergency into one geospatially organized digital dashboard. During this simulation, IMDSS was fully exchanging information through UICDS.
"For this exercise, IMDSS was used to create three events - a building collapse and fire, mass casualties and an equipment failure resulting in casualties," said James Gantt, director of the Center for Telecommunications Systems Management at Murray State University. "Event data was made available nationally to UICDS users participating in NLE 11."
IMDSS Mobile was also used to capture on-site photographs and other site data that was attached to the IMDSS events. The on-site information was automatically made available to UICDS users nationally.
"This simulation provided a robust and realistic demonstration of how IMDSS aggregates and visualizes disparate data for UICDS users locally and nationally," says Swati D. Allen at ElanTech. "We're very pleased with how well it performed in this complex, large-scale test."
Click here to read the entire press release. |
|
SAIC Talks About Successful Deployment of "UICDS in the Cloud"
Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) (NYSE: SAI) announced that the Unified Incident Command and ecision Support (UICDS) system has been successfully deployed to the cloud. The deployment, in support of the "UICDS Technology Showcase" during the National Level Exercise for 2011 (NLE 11), demonstrates UICDS applicability and compatibility with cloud-based technologies.
"Deploying UICDS to the cloud for the UICDS NLE 11 Technology Showcase demonstrates the flexibility of the system's architecture," said Chip Mahoney, SAIC UICDS project manager.
Read the entire announcement by clicking here. |
|
Become a UICDS Pilot - Yours from DHS
Tired of watching and want to get involved? Are you a government agency that knows you shoud share information better? Critical infrastructure owner/operator in need of coordination with governments? Technology provider who wants to better serve emergency management and response organizations? |
|
Use the UICDS Development Kit To Win Contracts that Require UICDS Compliance
Recently, the State of California and the State of West Virginia both issued requests for proposals that called for UICDS compliance as a condition of the contract. Feeling left behind?
Now there is a guide to what it means to "comply" with UICDS. Get the new UICDS Compliance Overview report to see the details. And you can see and listen to the UICDS Compliance Tutorial about compliance with UICDS v 1.1 on the UICDS Collaboration Portal. If this is you ... and you don't want to be excluded from future bids ... just answer a few questions to get the UICDS Development Kit and example code to build your UICDS Adapter today. Get started by clicking here. |
|
