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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. |
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Watch
UICDS The Movie
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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 |
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UICDS Update
The Department of Homeland
Security Information Sharing
Technology Program
In this issue ... |
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 UICDS Q&A Thursday on the Biweekly Tutorial Call on August 25 at Noon
We've thrown a lot at you recently and want to take this week's UICDS Tutorial and Biweekly Call to give you updates on several past reports and give you an opportunity to ask questions.
Roger Wuerfel, the UICDS Technical Lead, and Jim Morentz, UICDS Outreach Director, will be fielding your questions on any topic you want. Roger will be there for the technical issues of adapter development and deployment and Jim will be there for the operational questions and pilot implementations.
Some of the topics you will be able to learn more about come from our recent calls and technical innovations. So look for an update on these topics and getting your questions answered on these and any topic.
Mobile Apps Update
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UICDS iPhone App |
Recently we presented the example code for our latest version of mobile apps for Android phones. Learn about the iPhone app and its availability on Thursday's call.
UICDS in the Cloud During NLE 11
UICDS operated in the Cloud throughout the comprehensive National Level Exercise for 2011 that took place with thousands of players across the Midwest. UICDS conducted a parallel technology showcase using a cloud deployment to show how UICDS can scale to a national event. Learn more about Cloud deployment of UICDS.
IPAWS Interoperability Update
The UICDS - IPAWS interoperability adapter will be shown at our next call on September 8th. We've been working with several technology providers to put together a really impressive demonstration of their various capabilities to work through IPAWS and interact with UICDS applications. Our current particpants are:
- Buffalo Computer Graphics, Inc. developers of DisasterLAN™
- CellCast Technologies, LLC and their EAGLE Alert™
- Indiana University of Pennsylvania Research Institute and the Civil Support Team Information Management System
- Monmouth University and CAPer tool plus mobile CAP messaging
- New Jersey Institute of Technology CAP messaging
Other technology providers can still join in the demonstration. Just drop Jim Morentz an email.
South Carolina Palmetto Vision Supported by UICDS
This project continues to grow impressively and we will be available to answer your questions about the progress as South Carolina moves toward 30 counties operational with UICDS Cores as their information sharing pathway.
UICDS Version 1.1.1
Roger will give a few notes on our experience with pilots and technology providers moving to version 1.1.1 and the tools we have developed to make that as easy as possible.
Richmond Computer-Aided-Dispatch UICDS Pilot
One of the "early adopter" UICDS Technology Providers, Intergraph®, in cooperation with Augusta Systems and the City of Richmond, has made UICDS the center of information sharing between the Intergraph computer-aided dispatch used by Richmond and other Virginia organizations. We will update you on the progress of this UICDS Pilot.
Enhanced Adminstrative Console
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.
Best Practice in Blue Force Tracking
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Courtesy Drakontas, Inc. |
Whether following a police car responding to a call for service or a truck fixing downed wires, knowing the GPS location of key resources aids emergency operations management. The UICDS approach to Blue Force Tracking is to enable the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Observation Service (SOS) to track resources managed through the Emergency Data Exchange Language-Resource Messaging (EDXL-RM) standard. 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 |
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| Looking Ahead: Search for Resource Typing Schema
Aaron Lieb, one of the long-time participants in UICDS, is posing this question to the UICDS community. The discussion will be part of one of our upcoming calls, but you can connect with Aaron on the topic by contacting him by email.
The development community is in need of a resource typing schema. This is not the NIMS Resource Typing that is an on-going effort. That represents the content of resource names and types. Rather, we also need the schema into which this content is placed in a computer format. The examples coming from OASIS for using the EDXL-RM TypeStructure and TypeInformation element have largely had place holder information such as the type structure: urn:x-hazard:vocab:resourceTypes - which seems to be something used for the purpose of an example. The documentation from OASIS explains that the community of interest (COI) that wishes to share Resource information needs to come up with an agreed upon schema, which application interfaces on all sides of an information sharing exchange will be able to understand like an IPAWS COG, UICDS Core, or other message routers, etc.
This has really been a struggle because the emergency management COI that we are dealing with clearly has a need for a structure that describes NIMS typed resources, but no one has stepped in and said that this or that schema is the standard to use. So what ends up happening is, developers try to adopt things like EDXL-RM but the element that ends up containing those most important kernels of information are an "AnyType" and do not conform to a particular standard.
Aaron suggests that the UICDS community is one place to begin to identify an organization within FEMA with whom to discuss putting some official stamp of approval on a single schema or submitting to OASIS some official FEMA NIMS Resource Typing structure that could be used to fill this role.
Aaron has put together a schema that follows all the available recommended structures and would like to have others examine the schema and discuss taking it (or anything else) forward to the appropriate bodies. Please contact Aaron if you would like to discuss. |
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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? |
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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. |
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