News

Can real-time integration secure the homeland?

• By Lana Gates
• August 18, 2003

XAware Inc., Colorado Springs, Colo., has found a niche -- homeland security -- for its XA-Xchange implementation software package that allows access to data stored in a variety of systems. XA-Xchange is built around the XA-Suite of tools and includes software components such as mobile device access, application server software and portal software from IBM, BEA and Sun.

For homeland security to be effective, it requires exposure and exchange of information from existing systems, legacy applications and databases in real time, said XAware officials. XA-Xchange can enable government agencies involved in homeland security to complete information-sharing projects in weeks, not months or years, officials contended, by helping with integration sharing and exchange in a single view.

In a health crisis, for example, the product can aid in disease information tracking, critical situations, 911 telephone records, border information, warrants and the like, contended Rick Cloutier, vice president of marketing. "In some cases, it's horizontal in nature -- agency to agency -- or vertical, city to state to federal," he said.

Cloutier added that the XA-Xchange toolset can help government agencies to utilize information in myriad computers built by different manufacturers and running different operating systems. Such systems might be two years old, another 10 years old, and still another 15 years old. To utilize the information stored in all of these computer systems, the government has standardized on XML as its common exchange language. "We go in and help them XML-enable their legacy systems instead of [them] having to rewrite or bring up new systems," Cloutier explained.

Prior to the development of such technology, "states would have to spend months and years to be able to access information and exchange it," Cloutier said. Having this information available in real time will greatly aid the fight against terrorism, he noted.

"If you look at some of the incidences [of terrorism], one of the most common threads is having critical pieces of information within the systems. The information was available in one of the systems, but they weren't able to share it. That's the issue we help government agencies to address," he said.

XA-Xchange is based on software with advanced Enterprise Information Integration (EII) capabilities, which include bi-directional read/write, support for any number of data sources in a single view, a rapid application development IDE with configuration wizards, and a standards-based architecture. Pricing ranges from $75,000 to $150,000 depending on project and connectivity requirements.