George S. Rice Jr., APCO International Executive Director

Flash back a few decades to the time when mainframe systems occupied vast areas in almost every major company and sizeable public agency. Users were hardwired to the main hub and drew information from databases to their workstations based solely on capacities available on site. If the need for greater capacity arose, the acquisition, installation and maintenance of additional network components — and sometimes desktops — had to follow, fostering ever-larger data centers requiring more staff, hardware and software. As the personal computer gained market share and supplanted the mainframe, data centers changed. The supercomputer-like systems gave way to the racks of servers we see now.

This schema offered, and offers, a secure and largely reliable setting for mission-critical and non-mission-critical computing and processing for public safety agencies. Because voice communications had not yet been fully envisioned as IP-based solutions, considerations for how these services were provided were wholly separate. Ubiquitous broadband networks offering the convergence of voice and data into a single system were not yet discussed or considered fiscally or technically realistic.

Next to Nebulous
Cloud computing has been loosely described as software and services that run on your computer but that you don’t need to purchase or operate yourself. It’s all in the clouds. This paradigm is basically a twist on outsourcing. The idea is that a user accesses and pays only for those services they need, offering the ability to increase or decrease capacity as needed. It’s a seemingly excellent idea for the public and potentially for commercial enterprises, particularly cash-conscious small businesses and start-ups.

The investments in infrastructure that need not be made, as well as the intrinsic nimble nature of software upgrades, offer potentially significant cost savings for technology budgets. All these possible positive attributes aside, when cloud computing is thought of as a means to deliver mission-critical public safety communications, a number of questions arise.

Are Clouds on the Horizon?
According to discussions at a recent technology conference, a study determined that 80% of data used by business comes from outside the company. Cloud computing can be seen as a technical response to this reality. Information used for and by public safety professionals comes from a mix of secure, non-secure, internal and external sources, and requires security measures unique to public safety’s needs. Reliable mission-critical connectivity to an independent and secure network is crucial for the proper delivery of emergency services at all times. At present, such requirements — and justifiable they are — may indeed preclude the development and use of a cloud system for public safety communications.

Without flashing forward too far into a future in which connectivity and security issues are fully solved, what aspects of cloud computing are applicable now? Distinctive or private clouds with restricted access to exclusive public safety data and communications services may sit in the interim as a way to take advantage of cloud computing’s cost-saving features.

A basic data center does not always represent the most efficient method of using an organization’s computing capacity. This is particularly the case in the public sector, in which enterprise networks are often designed and equipped to handle peak workloads, leaving a fair amount of capacity underutilized much of the time. In a public safety restricted cloud, agencies can pool capacity, use it as needed and relinquish it to others when the need is less.

Maintaining an in-house cloud could also ease some security and privacy concerns related to running public safety applications. And we mustn’t overlook the fact that, often, public safety data connectivity is subject to explicit regulation. But data storage and computing services vendors do maintain state-of-the-art facilities and implement security updates regularly and immediately. Either way, the economies of scale to be realized through such a system in a public safety setting may hold a great deal of promise as this still under-defined solution evolves. Reducing or eliminating many hardware and software expenses offers an attractive solution for cash-strapped local jurisdictions that don’t have the budget for large capital purchases. Monthly operating expenses, such as cloud services, can offer an alternative to these daunting outlays of taxpayer dollars.

Who Do You Trust?
At the heart of the matter for PSC’s readers stands a lone question: Can cloud computing deliver a system whereby first responders can reliably and effectively deliver emergency services to the public? A resounding and definitive “maybe” is the current answer. For the immediate future, one could surmise that “maybe” is on a track of transition to “possibly.” Looking over the horizon, “possibly” has its sights on “probably,” leading with some inevitability toward “undoubtedly.” But with today’s infrastructure setting and wireless processing capacity vetted against the ever-present demands placed on public safety communications systems, the cloud will loom in the distance for some time to come.

About the Author
George S. Rice Jr. is executive director of APCO International. Contact him via e-mail at riceg@apcointl.org.

Orginially published in Public Safety Communications, 76(3):13, March 2010.