The bright cloud over public safety

Today, however, cloud solutions have proven to be a mature, robust infrastructure alternative to premises-based solutions. They can offer public safety agencies significant advantages with minimal risk.

Improved control, reliability and quality

Modern emergency communications rely heavily upon technology. From call-taking equipment to geographic location information to computer-aided dispatch (CAD), today’s public safety answering point (PSAP) directors spend significant amounts of time, money and staff on the acquisition, implementation and maintenance of technology that is housed within their physical structure. Every function that an emergency communications center provides requires a capital investment for a specific technology that has a life span of five to 10 years, yet might become obsolete in as little as 18 to 24 months. And every one of those technologies requires ongoing maintenance to ensure proper function and security.

Cloud-based computing allows PSAPs to purchase a managed emergency communications service from a provider that specializes in 9-1-1 technology. The provider supplies and maintains all or part of the 9-1-1 infrastructure. The PSAP pays a flat fee per month, based upon the functionality they choose to implement.

The physical technology is housed in off-site, provider-managed facilities with a high degree of security and geographic redundancy. The PSAP retains full control, including ownership, management and access to all of their public safety data, while the provider takes full responsibility for the technology and infrastructure. This includes 24/7/365 maintenance at the off-site locations, as well as ongoing technology upgrades as they become available. This model allows PSAP directors to be less concerned about managing and maintaining call-processing equipment (CPE), so they can focus their attention on the mission-critical tasks of the center.

This shift in responsibility has a significant impact on the quality and breadth of service that a center can provide. Not only will the PSAP have the most updated technology at all times, eliminating concerns about obsolescence, but it can also purchase the exact feature functionality needed to serve its jurisdiction. Because of this, the PSAP can fully customize its cloud solution, scale functionality up and down on demand, and have fast, easy access to new capabilities as soon as they become available.

What is more, cloud-based solutions offer seamless interoperability with all standards-based on-premises and third-party solutions. This allows PSAPs to utilize existing capital investments as part of their overall technical solutions, as long as they are viable.

For the PSAP, there is little-to-no risk because the burden of delivering the best solutions possible is on the shoulders of the technology supplier. With cloud-based services, all competitive barriers are torn down because PSAPs are not locked into a single vendor for end-to-end services. It’s a simple task to shop the competition and try on as many hats as you like. It’s possible for a PSAP to test the same solution from multiple vendors in order to find the one they like best. Cloud-based solutions providers recognize that they must deliver the best service and solutions at all times or their customers will simply move on.

Security and the cloud

The security of a cloud-based 9-1-1 architecture and the data stored in that system is critical. Because of this, all public safety cloud-based architectures are dedicated infrastructures that have been purpose built from the ground up to offer emergency communication solutions to public safety agencies exclusively. The systems are parallel to — but isolated from — commercial and public clouds, much like the next-generation emergency communications IP network is separate from, but parallel to, the public IP network. While a single public safety cloud platform may service multiple PSAPs in numerous states, each entity has virtual segregation of data and security.

In order to guarantee the security of its public safety cloud, any legitimate provider will incorporate physical-level security in the types of connections used to deploy solutions to PSAPs. Additionally, application-level security must be implemented, as well as personnel and process security. It is important to understand, however, that these are the same types of security issues faced by any PSAP with an on-premises architecture. The primary difference is that with cloud-based solutions there are fewer redundant locations to secure and monitor, and the vendor shoulders the security burden. When the PSAP owns and manages on-premises solutions, they must also own the responsibility of firewalls, video surveillance and personnel security concerns.

Cost benefit of the cloud

The cost of cloud computing relative to that of an on-premises architecture is not an “apples-to-apples” comparison, so it can be challenging to produce a quantitative return-on-investment comparison. The true cost-benefit of cloud computing is the elimination of large capital investments, the stabilizing of cash flow and the assurance that solutions will always keep pace with the newest technology.

Fiscal responsibility is imperative to a PSAP. The communities served by the center want to know that it is running efficiently and effectively without wasted tax dollars. But they also want to be sure that the right technology is in place to get help to the scene of an emergency quickly.

With cloud computing, operational costs are stable and predictable. Money is no longer invested to own and maintain equipment that will quickly become obsolete. Rather, money is spent to access the best solutions available while allowing the PSAP to focus time and resources on mission critical tasks because the equipment is provided, maintained, repaired, replaced and upgraded as part of the monthly service agreement. Feature functionality can be added with only incremental spending. PSAPs have the freedom to purchase only the functionality they need, rather than being forced to buy capabilities they won’t use as a part of a bundled package.

When conducting a cost comparison between on-premises and cloud-based architectures, redundancy is a budgetary line item that is often overlooked. With a traditional on-premises system, creating reliable back-up requires two times the capital investment because the PSAP requires a fully duplicate architecture. These figures don’t even include the cost to house the redundant system at an alternate location. With a cloud-based architecture, redundancy is built into the system as well as the service agreement, and there doesn’t need to be any thought given to an additional location because the platform is offsite by design.

As a corollary, the innate and remote redundancy of the cloud provides simplified and improved operational continuity in the face of a crisis that threatens the physical structure of a PSAP. On-premises systems are directly tied to the primary emergency communications center because there are physical connections between the call-taking equipment and the technology infrastructure. Cloud-based solutions are independent of location because the connectivity to the cloud is IP-based. As long as a PSAP maintains an IP connection to the cloud, whether it is based on terrestrial access or wireless broadband access, calls can be answered and solutions can be accessed from anywhere, whether it is a neighboring PSAP or a mobile communications vehicle. This provides PSAPs with a virtual replica of their operations, without costly static back-up locations that are often geographically vulnerable to the same crisis that compromised the primary facility.

See the sunlight through the cloud

Cloud-based solutions are a viable, robust and secure alternative to traditional on-premises architectures. By looking to the cloud, PSAPs can have enhanced performance and availability of features, simplified IT maintenance and support, improved security management and more reliable operational continuity, all while diminishing large capital investments and stabilizing cash flow.