Operational
Enhancements

HSIN Completes Migration to Secure Cloud

A photo of a man using a computer HSIN reached a key milestone this fiscal year when it became the first DHS Headquarters program to leap past a conventional hybrid cloud model and move all capabilities—data and infrastructure—to the secure cloud at a Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) High, High, High level. As a result, the HSIN system is now more flexible, more efficient and capable of delivering services to users and stakeholders much more quickly than before. Many system upgrades that previously required months to deploy may now be accomplished in weeks, while many projects that previously took weeks to implement can now be done in days.

HSIN users benefit from virtually zero unplanned downtime thanks to instantaneous failover capabilities. System outages at the regional level are effortlessly covered by another region’s cloud infrastructure. If one computer server should fail, another server takes its place, all without users seeing any drop in performance.

As a result of this successful migration, HSIN saw:

Upgrades and new capabilities more quickly released to users; reduced time needed to move from requirements to new functionality by 33 percent
Increased speed to deliver new or enhanced services to users; reduced time needed to establish new environments by 75 percent
Improved standardization and reliability for testing new products; 90 percent alignment in configuration across all HSIN environments and retained all established performance thresholds

With this successful move to the cloud, HSIN has created a model for other organizations to emulate and the program stands ready to assist other DHS teams by sharing best practices for their cloud implementations. These lessons learned include nuances of the procurement process, types of deployments and enterprise licensing agreement considerations and how to leverage existing accreditations for common control frameworks.

"All of our team members—which included individuals from planning, development, contracts, outreach, service operations, testing, program management, communications and administration—worked diligently over the previous months to implement this major upgrade."

Damon Bragg
HSIN Service Operations Manager

HSIN Provides Key Support During Presidential Inauguration

During the 58^th Presidential Inauguration, HSIN served as the primary information sharing platform to support execution of security operations. HSIN provided information sharing subject matter experts who customized planning and operational tools that ensured approved users had the right access and training to meet mission needs. Partners deployed HSIN tools for real-time incident monitoring, secure collaboration capabilities and secure data exchange.

Did You Know?: HSIN’s operational geospatial data provided secure information feeds to 15 approved mission critical systems, and was a key component to the successful support of event security, crisis mitigation and incident management. It also hosted 150 geospatial layers from 20 federal, state and local partners.

Eclipse Watch Sets Best Practice for Small Jurisdictions

Millions of people traveled to the path of totality, a 70-mile wide strip of land that extended from Oregon to South Carolina. To facilitate information sharing and situational awareness among partners, HSIN established a Solar Eclipse community with multiple subsites for participating states and agencies. By establishing a single community for jurisdictions around the nation, HSIN facilitated mission success for a large number of partners and enabled cost savings by reducing or eliminating duplication of efforts at local levels.

"Individual pages were created for the 12 states in the path of the eclipse, along with a Federal coordination page. The site housed a tracker for gatherings and incidents, a document library, contact lists and an area for important announcements."

Terrence Newsome
HSIN Mission Advocate

Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community (SMSC) Partnership with HSIN

The HSIN Program has set several goals to help build strong relationships with Tribal Nations, including: establishing a platform for tribal governments’ presence on HSIN; strengthening tribes’ abilities to collaborate with homeland security partners in support of tribes’ mission success; and enhancing operational capabilities with HSIN’s comprehensive set of secure information sharing tools.

The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community’s Incident Management team uses HSIN for secure, real-time information sharing and collaboration for their first responder needs and to support public safety operations across the reservation, which includes luxury hotels, a gaming casino and other properties.

Did You Know?: In July, the SMSC used HSIN to support its Annual Wacipi, a ceremonial gathering of the tribe’s community. SMSC also used HSIN over the summer in support of several amphitheater concerts at Prior Lake.

HSIN and GMO Team Up on 'Sail Boston' Tall Ships Event

Mission partners used HSIN and DHS Geospatial Management Office mapping capabilities to support the 'Sail Boston' Tall Ships event. The FBI’s Boston Field Office, Massachusetts Commonwealth Fusion Center, Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC), Boston Police Department and Massachusetts State Police used HSIN to analyze shared intelligence. HSIN enabled seamless access to incidents and reports as well as high-resolution imagery and critical infrastructure information.

"This partnership will provide the BRIC and mission partners with superior levels of situational awareness, inform decision making, and greatly enable the planning, rehearsal, and execution phases of the event."

David Carabin
BRIC Director

HSIN is the Top-Seeded Team for Information Sharing at the NCAA^® Tournament

HSIN kept fans safe at several sites of the men’s collegiate Division I basketball tournament, including the Final Four in Glendale, Arizona. HSIN’s information sharing role among public safety partners included providing tools such as HSIN Connect for secure messaging and collaboration. These capabilities allow stakeholders to access up-to-date information from a single common view and coordination point, allowing emergency personnel to efficiently and effectively manage their efforts.

Did You Know?: HSIN Mission Advocates were integral to the operation, conducting outreach to convene partners to work together using the same playbook. HSIN Mission Advocates also developed and refined the information sharing strategies needed to provide a front line of defense against potential threats.

A First for HSIN: Supporting the U.S. Open Golf Tournament in Wisconsin

HSIN enabled 22 federal, state and local agencies to join with private sector partners to support security at the U.S. Open golf tournament in Erin, Wisconsin. The DHS Geospatial Management Office worked with HSIN Mission Advocates to deliver a solution that provided live mapping of incidents at the event, which enabled the Joint Operations Command Center to easily track emergency service calls and provide clear operational direction.

"Having one centralized point to disseminate information made communications concise and consistent across all of the public safety entities, which ranged from local to state to federal and even civilian organizations."

Captain Martin Schulteis
Deputy Incident Commander for the Washington County Sheriff’s Office

HSIN Support Shows 'Anything is Possible' for IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship

At the IRONMAN 70.3 World Championship in Chattanooga, Tennessee, HSIN supported public safety operations for 23 partners including the DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate, U.S. Coast Guard, Tennessee Fusion Center, Tennessee Emergency Management Agency and Tennessee Office of Homeland Security. Officials used HSIN to display video from an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or drone, through an iPad to support situational awareness and risk mitigation activities.

"HSIN provided the Hamilton County Emergency Operations Center the ability to monitor activities and maintain an event log as situations happened."

Tony Reavley
Director of Emergency Services and Homeland Security for Hamilton County

OperationalEnhancements