WHAT PROBLEM DOES THE TOOL HELP SOLVE?

People involved in security operations often need to deal with multiple tools at the same time.  At a given moment they may be interacting directly with just one specific tool – but they need to be made immediately aware of critical situations that other tools may have detected. If tools interact with users via separate interfaces, it can be very difficult for staff to work effectively, especially in stressful situations.  Also: different users may have different perceptions of the overall situation depending on which tools they happen to be using.

The IMPETUS platform provides a way to combine multiple tools in a unified interface, so that users who need to interact with multiple tools can do so in one place.  It shows the status of all the tools (example: an urgent alert has been raised) and allows an operator to interact with a specific tool to get more information.  It supports common situational awareness as different operators have the same overall view. It also offers possibilities to produce customised interfaces fine-tuned to the needs of different users (depending on their role, some users might be primarily interested in different subsets of the tools available).

The platform already supports integration with the tools developed in the IMPETUS project, but it is designed in an open way so that other tools (ones already in use by an organisation, or new ones they might acquire in future) can also be integrated.

HOW IS IT DEPLOYED IN IMPETUS?

·         Who are the users: Emergency and security centre operators and their supervisors; IT analysts and technicians; other staff responsible for monitoring and dealing with urban security.

·         What are the critical situations for deployment: Continuous:  Security is a 24/7 operation.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

The platform provides a central dashboard integrating tools to allow monitoring of potential threat events as they arise. There is a main dashboard showing the overall status of all tools, and tool-specific dashboards to allow more detailed interaction with specific tools.

Alerts are shown with different levels of priority, and indications of whether they have been acknowledged and/or resolved.  Where feasible, data is presented graphically for easy visualization, and a map is provided to show where the event occurred. Comments can be associated with alerts and shared with other users.

The platform was implemented using the Snap4City platform: http://www.snap4city.org/