In an effort to improve responsiveness to possible terrorist activities, public and private companies as well as universities, government agencies and other organisations from around the world are working closely to create connections and interoperability between the many geographic information systems (GIS) solutions that manipulate, analyse and present spatial and location information.

Known as Open GIS Consortium (OGC), this global coalition is gearing up to demonstrate to OGC sponsors, systems integrators and the media, how a host of disparate GIS applications can be made to interoperate in order to counter a terrorist event. By conducting a simulated response to a hijacking of a truck carrying hazardous materials, OGC will seek to illustrate how participating organisations can efficiently share information, collaboratively analyse a situation and construct the appropriate response measures.

"Historically, GIS services were built as standalone applications that addressed narrowly defined needs. They were not made to easily connect to or communicate with other applications and systems. But given the increasing need for enhanced national security, this connectivity is exactly what is required now," says Jeff Harrison, executive director of the OGC Interoperability Program.

OGC and Commerce One joined forces as part of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Initiative to develop a way to mobilise law enforcement and government security experts with GIS technologies providers, giving them the ability to respond as a single system to terrorist activity. To add to the system's complexity, the media also had to be linked to the system, but could only receive limited access to pre-defined information.

Utilising the Commerce One conductor platform, a standards-based Composite Applications platform designed to connect and compose business to business processes between systems and partners, the OGC Critical Infrastructure Protection Initiative integrated a portal application to manage the terrorist event response process, utilising process management features that ensure efficient collaboration between all participants. For the first time, critical information such as the location of the truck and major roadways in the area could combine with the capability to zoom in on areas of interest, perform flyovers or rotate maps to explore local terrain, giving participants a comprehensive view of the situation.

"The Commerce One Conductor platform provided a flexible capability to connect to each of the systems, enabling us to automate interaction that we thought would have to be conducted manually," says Harrison.

Built around the concepts of an event, the portal application manages three types of organisations throughout the event-event owners who initiate the event and control the distribution of data and information; event participants that provide data or technology elements; and event viewers such as the media. The secure, role-based portal includes standardised notifications, requests and responses that support communication and cohesion between GIS services. It also offers basic view functionality that allows the media to access maps and related information describing the situation.

Ultimately, OGC expects that demonstrating the effectiveness of enabling interoperability between GIS applications to combat terrorism will go a long way toward building support from key stakeholders and obtaining further funding to deliver the concept on a wider scale.

"By connecting silos of information and functionality across disparate systems and users, we can operate as a unified system to produce valuable intelligence that could help protect our national security and save lives," concludes Harrison.

For more information contact Commerce One, 011 770 8800, info@commerceone-sa.com