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IPAWS-OPEN Latest Release Previewed
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“It is great to see the continuing engagement by
FEMA with its stakeholders.”
That’s alerting expert Gary
Timm, writing on the AWARE blog. He helpfully summarizes improvements in the
latest version of IPAWS-OPEN, the Open Platform for Emergency Networks within FEMA’s
Integrated Public Alert and Warning System. It’s interesting reading for those who are affected by
how the modernized national alerting infrastructure is being built.
Timm — a former broadcast engineer who works for SRA
International Strategy and Performance Group and is both broadcast chair of the
Wisconsin State EAS Committee and a member of the State Amber Alert Committee —
took notes during a webinar that previewed features of the latest
IPAWS-OPEN release, v3.04.
Among other things, he
describes an enhanced ability for FEMA to switch off any local “collaborative
operating groups” that are sending problematic messages. There’s a new capability
for alert originators to have different event code permissions on different
dissemination channels (EAS, CMAS, etc.). And the latest release brings better
filtering of applicable messages for particular areas.
About
this last item, Timm writes: “Systems like EAS request a Message List from the
IPAWS server each time they check for applicable messages for their area. Those
Message List requests can now be filtered better to request only messages from
a particular COG, only that contain a certain Event Code, only that have a
digital signature validated by FEMA, or only are IPAWS Profile conformant.”
He said support for Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) v1.1
messages will end with deployment of OPEN v3.04. “All exchanges on IPAWS will
now need to utilize CAP v1.2.”
He also noted that state
and local alert originators and IPAWS-OPEN developers are able to make use of
the facilities of the IPAWS Laboratory at the Joint Interoperability Test
Command in Maryland as a platform to test systems and alerting capabilities “in
an environment similar to IPAWS without causing test alerts to circulate in the
actual IPAWS network.”
Read it here.
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