Java Technology Mobilizes Homeland Security at Aether Systems

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by Steven Meloan

January 17, 2002

Going Mobile
According to some industry estimates, by the year 2004, the number of U.S. wireless data users will grow from 3 million to between 15 and 36 million — a five-fold increase or more. Wireless phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), two-way pagers, and other wireless devices are driving a post-desktop era of information devices.

Aether Systems, Inc. delivers wireless data products and services to mitigate the complexities of disparate networks and devices for industries seeking the vital benefits of "information mobility," including real-time data for wireless devices.

Aether's solutions span virtually any data network, any operating system, and any hardware platform. Increasingly, Aether is relying on the secure, scalable, cross-platform, component-driven power of Java technology to achieve this flexibility.

Wireless Workers, Mobile Government
Nearly 60 percent of U.S. workers currently spend more than a quarter of their time away from their primary workspace, according to an industry study. And for many fields — such as sales and service, transportation, healthcare, and police, fire, and other emergency services — much of their workforce must operate away from a traditional office setting. It is here that Aether has set its technology solution sights.

Even before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Aether's Mobile Government division was one of its fastest growing areas. In the real world of police, fire, and emergency response teams, rapid access to information is key to fighting crime, saving lives, and staying out of harm's way.

Aether's mobile government solutions are currently being used by more than 50,000 mobile workers, across federal, state, and local government jurisdictions.

Java Technology on the Case
Aether's earliest solutions were developed on Windows, and written in C. "The products were always geared toward being agnostic as far as wireless infrastructure," says Bob Hathaway, Vice President of Engineering for Aether's Mobile Government division. "But we were limited in terms of what we could do with new platforms, and in terms of plugging in new technologies.

Two years ago, the Mobile Government division began employing Java technology in their solutions. This quickly afforded the group a broad array of new benefits. "By moving to Java technology," says Hathaway, "our solutions became not only wireless infrastructure agnostic, but also platform agnostic. And it opened up a whole world of components that we could take advantage of, as well as technology partners on the outside." "I can't stress that enough — how we've been able to obtain ready-made components that we previously would have had to develop ourselves."

I Carry a Badge (and a PDA)

The company's mobile government line for police services includes:

• PacketCluster Patrol, an open, standards-based wireless product for in-vehicle access;
• PacketWriter, a mobile field reporting solution;
• StopTracker, a facility for data collection, reporting and analysis intended to address national concerns about "racial profiling"; and
• PocketBlue, the handheld client portion of a fully integrated, mobile data system.

Using Aether's PocketBlue technology, officers carrying a Palm or Blackberry device can discreetly check wants, warrants, vehicle registrations, gun licenses, and more. The system can access the FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC), the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (NLETS), and the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) — all over a secure network.

"Hits" on these queries can trigger system-wide alarms to all users from dispatch personnel to in-vehicle systems to handheld devices, providing real-time alerts and freeing up critical emergency dispatch radio frequencies.

"You're freeing up the radio dispatcher for other tasks and tapping directly into state and federal databases," says Mike Layman, Product Marketing Manager for Aether Mobile Government, "and that's both an efficiency issue and a safety issue, because the faster an officer can determine whether he's perhaps dealing with a stolen vehicle or someone with warrants out, the sooner he can act upon that information."

In addition, using encrypted messaging, police personnel can silently communicate with one another, whether one-to-one or one-to-many, including defined groups. "This can be used to alert all supervisors, for example," says Layman.

Fire and Emergency Medical Services

Aether's mobile government line for Fire and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) includes:

• PacketCluster Rescue, a wireless information facility that extends computer aided dispatch (CAD), fire records management systems (RMS), and other in-house data sources to mobile in-vehicle systems;
• PocketRescue, a wireless handheld application for Fire Services (similar to PocketBlue);
• Fire RMS 5.0, an advanced RMS that is NFIRS 5.0 (National Fire Incident Reporting System) compliant; and
• FireRMS.com, a web-based RMS system that runs completely within a web browser.

PocketRescue is tightly integrated with FireRMS 5.0 — allowing mobile fire services personnel to query occupancy data, rosters, certifications, hydrants, and more. As with Aether's law enforcement products, information mobility with rapid access to information can prove critical.

"When firefighters arrive at the scene of a fire," says Layman, "they need to know what is in the building, the contact person, where the keys are, where shutoff valves are, and where electrical panels are located. That sort of information is stored in the FireRMS 5.0 system, and having the ability to access that information quickly and wirelessly can mean the difference between life and death."

Meanwhile, the Blackberry by Aether service, for the RIM (Research In Motion) 950 or 957 wireless handheld systems, provides PocketRescue and PocketBlue users with access to an electronic mailbox and address book. "Aether sells RIM devices pre-configured with email capabilities as a value-added service," explains Layman. Always on and always connected, critical police/fire/EMS email messages are "pushed" out in real time to the user in the field.

Java Technology End-to-end
Java technology is employed extensively throughout the product line, including the server components of PocketBlue and PocketRescue, which operate in concert with the PacketCluster Server product, and the client side of browser-based FireRMS.com.

"We're using the J.F.C./Swing APIs for client development," says Hathaway, "and the middleware of our products is all Java technology, including Jini and JavaSpaces technologies. Meanwhile, we're using servlets and the JDBC APIs on the back end. We're actively tracking and supporting industry advancements in Java technology as a complete solutions platform."

Ease of development has also been a plus for the Mobile Government division. "I believe that with the Java language, you can write more working code, and faster, than in any other language," says Hathaway. "All our recent development is based upon Java technology."

The Future
Beyond Aether's turnkey software solutions, the company is also building a comprehensive platform for the development of custom wireless services. Aether Fusion is a single-source wireless solution for the enterprise, providing seamless information mobility. The infrastructure combines the best of Aether technology and industry standard technologies, enabling enterprises to build and customize wireless solutions over any network. Aether Fusion is comprised of the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE); Aether's ScoutWare family of tools, for the rapid building, deployment, and management of wireless solutions; Aether Intelligent Messaging (AIM), a software product that enables developers to quickly and easily integrate enterprise data with wireless solutions; and the Aether hosting service.

Aether Fusion includes client applications, network adapters, communications adapters (voice, SMS, TCP/IP, etc.), core services (authentication, encryption, compression, etc.), service adapters (synchronization, streaming, etc.), and data adapters (providing links to XML data sources, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange, etc.). "Think of Fusion as a series of building blocks that can be assembled together to provide end-to-end solutions," says Lisa Choi-Owns, Aether's Director of Strategic Product Marketing.

And as in Aether's Mobile Government division, Java technology is increasingly making its way into the company's other development areas. "ScoutWeb, which is part of the ScoutWare family, is a Java technology-based transcoding server," says Hathaway. "It takes Web-based data sources — HTML, XML, etc. — and modifies or manipulates the data for delivery down to handheld clients. This is indicative of our increasing move toward Java technology," he adds. "As a corporation, we've seen the successes of Java technology in some of the other pieces of our organization, and we're now making further investments and strategic technology choices in terms of Java technology."

See Also
Aether Systems, Inc.:
(www.aethersystems.com)

Aether Mobile Government:
(http://www.aethersystems.com/industries/industries_template.asp?PAGE=indu_gov_main)

Aether PocketBlue:
(http://www.aethersystems.com/industries/industries_template.asp?PAGE=indu_gov_pocketblue_main)

Aether PocketRescue:
(http://www.aethersystems.com/industries/industries_template.asp?PAGE=indu_gov_pocketrescue_main)

Aether Fusion:
(http://www.aethersystems.com/fusion/default.asp?PAGE=afus_index)

FieldSoft, Inc.:
(http://www.fieldsoft.com)

Java 2 Platform Enterprise Edition:
(http://java.sun.com/j2ee/)

Java Servlet Technology:
(http://java.sun.com/products/servlet/)

Swing GUI Components:
(http://java.sun.com/products/jfc/#components)

Java DataBase Connectivity (JDBC) Data Access API
(http://java.sun.com/products/jdbc/)

Jini Network Technology:
(http://www.sun.com/jini/)