Multi-tenant Installation Warning System

Challenge

Many military installations are inhabited by multiple tenants – not just one command. This trend will continue to grow as the Services work together on joint operations. This level of cooperation is valuable for the military, but it can create a complicated alerting problem. As installations move toward shared facilities – between the Services as well as between commands within a single Service – providing effective emergency alerting to all installation personnel can become tricky. Who has the authority to alert whom? And under what circumstances?

Audience

Tenant commanders, tenant security personnel, Threat Response Teams and/or Communications Directorates of military bases, installations and networked facilities in charge of implementing FSTR warning and notification systems.

Solution

IWSAlerts is a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solution that turns an organization’s existing IP network into a comprehensive emergency notification system. IWSAlerts integrates with other alerting channels such as PA communications, sirens, telephony and text-messaging services and provides a single, unified console for managing, triggering and controlling the emergency notification process across all delivery devices.

This allows organization safety managers to quickly and efficiently communicate a consistent yet individually tailored alert to personnel, first responders, senior management, security managers and surrounding communities. The information is sent via multiple and redundant means, including desktops and laptops, cell phones, PDA’s, BlackBerries, landline phones, PA systems and sirens.

Alerts can be activated in seconds, reaching thousands of people on the network in an average of one minute. And because the network uses multi-directional communication, acknowledgements from every alerted recipient can also be tracked in order to provide an instantaneous picture of personnel status and accountability. AtHoc IWSAlerts allows for a single system to be used by multiple tenants within the installation. The system can be configured to allow personnel with alerting authority to log in through a Web-based console and alert their own personnel. The tenants can also work together to determine if specific tenants should have installation-wide alerting authority, making it possible to alert everyone on the installation (not just members of the tenant organization) if a threat has a broader impact that affects everyone.

By using AtHoc IWSAlerts, installations can easily address emergency alerting for multiple tenants through a single system. Now, each tenant no longer needs to supply their own network-centric emergency alerting system. Rather, they can use the installation-wide system and create their alerting capability for their own organization.

The AtHoc multi-tenant system provides the flexibility needed for each tenant while also making it possible to ensure installation-wide alerting within minutes. This is made possible by deploying a Web-based framework with sophisticated security to ensure only designated personnel have authority to launch alerts.

AtHoc’s multi-tenant capabilities provide installations with the ability to:

• Create Installation-Wide Alerts: Designated installations personnel can alert all tenants if an emergency situation occurs the impacts all installation personnel.
• Create Tenant-Specific Alerts: Each tenant has the ability to alert their own personnel regarding situations that impact only their individual tenant.
• Predetermine Scenarios for Installation-Wide and Tenant-Specific Alerting: Tenant organizations can work together to predefine scenarios that should be sent out to the full installation, which should be sent to all tenant emergency response personnel, and which scenarios that only a single tenant should handle. The scenarios can then be preprogrammed to alert the specific personnel with the click of a mouse.

And because of the Web-based alerting console, AtHoc IWSAlerts can be installed centrally and accessed by all tenants over the Web. This makes it possible to install the system once and be used throughout all of the tenant organizations.

Now all installation command and communications centers can improve collaboration and response time in times of emergency without any lag time in information distribution.

Solution Benefits and Capabilities

• Provides rapid mass notification using existing IP network
• Notifies personnel through multiple channels (PCs, cell phones, PDAs, pagers, BlackBerries, computer kiosks, landline phones, sirens, PA systems and digital billboards)
• Consolidates IP and traditional notification channels into a single alerting platform
• Sends intrusive audio-visual desktop alerts to recipients
• Sends alerts to other organizations such as emergency services and neighboring facilities
• Section 508 compliant - Provides alerting for special needs community
• Tracks recipient feedback in real-time
• Establishes standard operating procedures for emergency notifications
• Manages alert recipient information and integrates with user directories
• Integrates with sources of emergency information such as the National Weather Service
• Allows operators to trigger alerts from any Web browser using secure login credentials