"It is critical that all of our first responders have instant access to the critical information that can save lives, speed arrests and ensure public safety," said Major Julian Allen, Ph.D., director of the Automated System Project. "IBM and Tarantella have delivered a secure and robust server/software solution that provides this secure remote access capability without any single point of failure."
Through the efforts of U.S. Senators Thad Cochran and Trent Lott, Federal funding was secured for this pilot project that could eventually become a national model for linking more states together using a centralized software applications model.
The initial deployment of the Mississippi Automated System Project (ASP) will support all law enforcement, fire department and emergency medical services within Hancock, Harrison and Jackson counties. The complete ASP system will be rolled out in three distinct phases. The first phase, which was completed in February of 2004, provided a single point of access to the existing jail management system of three county jails. The second phase, initiated in June 2004, allows integrated records management and computer aided dispatch for fire and law enforcement. The final phase of the project, which is expected to be deployed in October 2004, will implement the mobile data infrastructure -- connecting laptops in all police, fire and emergency vehicles to multiple databases.
Each centralized data center network will consist of one IBM eServer iSeries 825 and two eServer xSeries 445 systems running Tarantella Secure Global Desktop Enterprise Edition remote access software, Novell's SUSE LINUX and IBM DB2. This data center will be linked to an identical data center at separate location to provide redundancy and guarantee that there is no single point of failure. As the ASP system expands, these networks will be linked together to join multiple jurisdictions into a single centralized information source.
Initial deployment of the Automated System Project is being funded by $14 million in federal grants to the University of Southern Mississippi.
