Glossary

AAR

The After-Action Review (AAR) tool provides the possibility to collect data after a Trial has finished and analyse it. Its main purpose is to facilitate the evaluation of the Trialled solutions against the predefined objectives, and to help the participants determine how well they functioned. It collects messages (exchanged during Trial), observation reports and takes screen-shots of the applications during their use.

AVRO

Open data serialization system supported by the Apache Organisation.

CIS

Common Information Space for exchanging crisis management messages between solutions.

CM

Crisis Management

CSS

Common Simulation Space for exchanging simulation data between simulators.

COP

Common Operational Picture tools for creating a shared situational awareness

Docker

Docker is a free software application, available on Linux, Mac and Windows, which offers a way to run other applications in its own sand-box environment without requiring installation. Basically, a single PC can run many different Docker files, where each Docker file represents an application. This is also called virtualisation, as a single PC runs many services as if it was server park. A Docker-compose file, then, combines many Docker files into one, each representing a dedicated service of our test-bed or an external solution, such as the csCOP tool.

EDXL DE

EDXL DE, OASIS' Emergency Data Exchange Language (EDXL) Distribution Element Version 2.0. The primary purpose of the Distribution Element 2.0 is to facilitate the routing of any properly formatted emergency message to recipients. The Distribution Element may be thought of as a "container". It provides the information to route "payload" message sets (such as Alerts or Resource Messages), by including key routing information such as distribution type, geography, incident, and sender/recipient Ids.

Exercise

An exercise is an activity carried out to train personnel and processes in crisis management.

HLA

The high-level architecture (HLA) is a general purpose architecture for distributed computer simulation systems. Using HLA, computer simulations can interact (that is, to communicate data, and to synchronize actions) with other computer simulations regardless of the computing platforms. The interaction between simulations is managed by a run-time infrastructure (RTI). HLA is an interoperability standard for distributed simulation used to support analysis, engineering and training in a number of different domains in both military and civilian applications and is the standard technical architecture for all US Department of Defence simulations.

Observer tool

The online observer support tool facilitates the task of the observer by providing him or her with pre-made questions that can be easily answered during a Trial or exercise, and scenario triggers informing the observer of things to come. In addition, these responses will be harvested by the test-bed, and used for evaluation at the end of the exercise.

Scenario Manager

The scenario manager acts as the composer and conductor of a classical performance:

• As the composer, it defines what each role has to play. For example, what do the simulators need to do in order to provide a realistic incident and background to the Trial, or it could include sending direct messages to solutions.

• As the conductor, it controls when each role starts and stops.

SA

Situational awareness, basically do you know on the map where your people and other resources are, as well as all relevant crisis management related incidents and activities.

Sysops

System operators or system administrators, i.e. the ICT persons managing your local network infrastructure.

REST

REpresentational State Transfer, is a way to interact with many web services, thereby providing interoperability between computer systems on the Internet.

Trial

A Trial is a test of the performance, qualities, or suitability of a solution. A solution, in this context, is something that solves a crisis management gap.