CASESTUDYTHE CAPITAL WIRELESS INTEGRATED NETWORK (CAPWIN)

REAL-TIME COMMUNICATION SOLUTION IMPROVES EMERGENCY RESPONSE FOR D.C. METRO AGENCIES

THE CHALLENGEIt’s rush hour in Washington, D.C., and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge is bumper-to-bumper as usual.Suddenly, a lone figure appears teetering on the rail, faltering for balance, and threatening to jump.As drivers react in horror and disbelief, hordes of police cars, ambulances, and transportation officialsfrom the three jurisdictions surrounding the bridge converge on the scene. Traffic comes to a completestandstill. The situation is compounded by lack of any means for these first responders—fromMaryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia—to effectively and quickly communicate acrosstheir jurisdictions. As a result, drivers and responders are stuck on the bridge for more than seven hours.

This event and others like it led to the creation of CapWIN, a state-of-the-art,wireless, integrated, data communications network designed to support themany federal, state, and local public safety agencies in the Washington, D.C.metropolitan area. The CapWIN network lets law enforcement agencies and othersdo three things: communicate with one another over a secure instant messagingnetwork; search multiple databases; and permit better coordination betweenmultiple criminal justice, transportation, and hazardous material agenciesresponding to an emergency. IBM was chosen as the systems integrator, chargedwith building a seamless, unified solution comprised of diverse systems, networks,and applications.

To be truly effective, CapWIN needed a real-time, secure, standards-based messaging and presenceplatform capable of seamless integration with existing networks and systems.

THE SOLUTION: JABBER XCPThe Jabber Extensible Communications Platform (Jabber XCP) easily met and exceeded the key requirementsfor the messaging and presence component, putting it at the heart of the CapWIN solution. IBM and CapWINselected Jabber XCP for many reasons, including the following key attributes:

Interoperable and Standards-Based. Jabber XCP is built upon the Extensible Messaging and PresenceProtocol (XMPP), the only instant messaging and presence protocol approved by the Internet EngineeringTask Force (IETF). Jabber XCP provides native interoperability, allowing CapWIN users to connect to other systemsnow and in the future as required.

Network Efficient to Support Low-Bandwidth Connections. Jabber XCP allows people, devices, and applications to instantly communicate and exchange streaming XML data—even over the slowest connections.

CASESTUDYCapWIN

COMMUNICATE WITH ONE ANOTHER

OVER ASECUREINSTANT MESSAGING

NETWORK

Integrates with and Leverages Existing Systems and Networks. Jabber XCP’s flexible, open, XML-basedarchitecture allows it to seamlessly integrate with existing networks, devices, and applications, leveraging existinginvestments and reducing deployment costs. This advantage also makes it easier to expand into other jurisdictions.

Easy to Customize. CapWIN built its own Web client that connects to the Jabber XCP server. This was easilyaccomplished since the Jabber XCP architecture is built around the concept of “simple clients.” Custom clientinterfaces are easy to build and support by utilizing API’s.

Multi-User “Incident Rooms” Tie Agencies Together. Jabber XCP supports text conferencing rooms,where multiple users can communicate in real-time. CapWIN calls these “incident rooms,” because discrete,topically based rooms are set up for each emergency “incident” that occurs. Users across agencies enter thesereal-time incident rooms to review incident discussions, gather information as it is happening, and plan acoordinated response to each emergency.

With Jabber XCP, multiple agencies can easily communicate within or across jurisdictions in real-time, alleviatingsituations like the rush to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, described earlier. Jabber XCP’s presence-based servicesenable the system to instantly locate users and assess their availability.

Figure 1: Jabber XCP seamlessly integrateswith diverse systems, devices, and networks.

WebSphereApplication

Server

WebSphereEveryplace Wireless

Connection Manager

Global Directory & Data Repository

WebSphereIntegration Hub

MQ Series

External AgencyData Stores

MessagingCommuniGate

Email

DataTransformation

Server

The Solution ArchitectureCapWIN is built on a redundant architecture, using both Linux and Unix AIX. Jabber XCP runs on two Linux servers.

The custom, rugged laptops used in emergency vehicles utilize wireless communication to connect through avirtual private network (VPN), which includes 256-bit end-to-end encryption and ensures secure data transmission.

Users login to the secure CapWIN network via the custom Web-based client. Since the clients are Web-based,they have a very small footprint and do not require large downloads, making efficient use of limited bandwidth.In addition, the ability of Jabber XCP to fly through the system even on the slowest connections makes the mostof the older, slower mobile systems most of the clients run on.

THE RESULTSIn November 2003, the first CapWIN training sessions took place. The initial rollout of CapWIN involved morethan 100 users across ten agencies encompassing transportation, fire departments, and law enforcement. As of June 2004, CapWIN was deployed to hundreds of users across19 agencies—and is still growing. Jabber XCPhas proven to be a mission-critical component for CapWIN, providing:

Instant Access to the Right People. A crucial advantage of the system is the CapWIN global directory, which leverages Jabber XCP’s ability to assess a user’s presence and availability. Agency users can instantlyfind the people they need with the right skills, when they need them, regardless of jurisdiction.

Faster, Coordinated Response to Emergencies. Another key benefit is the elimination of the sort oftelephone tag typical of inter-agency communication. Not only can multiple agencies and users communicatein real-time—the entire history of communications is also available for users entering an incident room, givingthem a complete picture of the emergency at hand so they can best respond.

Better After-Action Analysis. Agencies can analyze the flow and historyof logged communications to produce “after action” reports, which help thembetter prepare for and respond to future incidents as well as protect themfrom potential liability issues.

A Cost-Effective Simple-to-Support Solution. Jabber XCP is easy tosupport, making it a boon to agencies strapped for funds and IT resources.It is also extremely hardware- and network-efficient, providing low cost ofownership and giving agencies the opportunity to leverage the limitedresources of time, money, technology, and people.

THE FUTURECapWIN is in the spotlight as a national model for similar projects in the future. The many benefits alreadyrealized from the CapWIN project make the solution an attractive offering to other multi-jurisdictionalregions across the country. The developers of CapWIN are examining the potential of building gatewaysand enhancing its global directory for agencies in an effort to build a cohesive nationwide network.

The project already shows great promise to alleviate situations like the response to the jumper on the WoodrowWilson Bridge, or the hunt for the D.C. sniper in 2003.

And Jabber XCP will be there, ensuring instant, reliable, secure communications between allthe players.

HELPBETTERPREPAREFOR FUTUREINCIDENTS

"All these agencies havedifferent systems fromdifferent vendors thatare wonderful, but theycouldn’t talk to oneanother. Now they can."

Bruce Barney,Technical Director,CapWIN

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