Swiss
National Emergency Operations Centre
Extranet
Rapid data input and targeted information distribution saves lives
The National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) in Switzerland is the national technical office for handling major crisis situations. From accidents involving chemicals and radioactive material to dam failures or natural ‘Acts-of-God’, NEOC provides a crisis-proof infrastructure for transmitting warnings, issuing guidelines and putting their emergency-handling expertise to work.
On average, the National Alarm Office in Zurich gets around 400 calls a year for assessment by duty personnel. Certain calls need to be referred to partner organisations in Switzerland or even abroad. As a result of this, the NEOC co-ordination centre relies on efficient communication channels for example, to the local police deployment centres. Direct links are also set up with other important Swiss partners such as nuclear power stations and the regulatory authorities like the Department for Safety at Nuclear Installations. These communication links need to be maintained and accessed regularly so speed and trouble-free data input are essential.
The NEOC needs to remain on permanent standby, reacting to situations without any advance warning. Prompt recognition of potential hazards is critically important. In the event of an incident, early notification to the authorities, police stations and management centres is vital and this in turn depends on a powerful, crisis-proof technology infrastructure.
Extranet
The NEOC traditionally handled communications with external partners by telephone, fax and secure email links, which occasionally lead to critical delays. To improve response times, the NEOC installed a prototype for a communications platform where all critical information was made available centrally. Instead of information being directed to particular individuals and teams, it was made accessible to all authorised partner organisations, who could use the data in accordance with their access rights.
Based on this prototype, the NEOC introduced an extranet based on Hyperwave’s Enterprise Content Management platform, with the Intranet and Extranet Solution installed. Data can now be inputted and accessed regardless of location with the web-authoring rights and information tailored to each NEOC partner. All parties involved can retrieve data at the same time, ensuring all components of the emergency organisation have consistent information and details. At the same time, the system permits partners who are called into an emergency situation at a later point, to get a quick overview.
In addition the extranet is able to support different formats such as HTML and XML documents, pictures, graphics and PDF files. The NEOC selected Hyperwave’s technology based on certain criteria, including the user-friendliness and the modular structure of the system. The extranet can be configured so that partner organisations are informed proactively as soon as new information, relevant to them, becomes available on the system.
With integrated link management, hyperlinks are automatically adjusted if a document is moved or renamed. If an item is deleted, the hyperlink ceases to be visible to users. The system is 100% web-based so that access to data is not dependent on a particular platform. At NEOC, the extranet is based on an Unix server platform.
Safety first
A key feature of the extranet is that it allows a large number of authors with restricted input rights and a wide range of receivers with comprehensive access to the data pool. This process needs to be controlled via the central access control for data, right down to hyperlink level. Reliability of information is ensured by document version - this means that no data is lost, the content is always up-to-date and the history of a document can always be traced back to its origin. A 128-bit SSL (secure socket layer) – data encryption on the communications platform – is a matter of course.
National Emergency Operations Centre
The National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC) based in Zurich is the federal technical office for emergency incidents. These include primarily danger from high radioactivity, whether due to an incident in a nuclear power station or a laboratory or transport accident. Its responsibilities also cover major accidents involving chemicals, dam breaches and dangers due to satellites hitting the earth. The emergency office is affiliated to the general secretariat of the Swiss Department of Defence, Civil Security and Sport (VBS).