CalOES Seeks Cloud Solution to Cover Emergencies Across Government

The California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services has issued a call for a cloud-based “comprehensive and visual solution to improve our understanding of emergency incidents for our staff.”

The solicitation is for a comprehensive solution to replace a system called SCOUT, “a web-based command and control environment for small to large to extreme scale incidents that facilitates collaboration across Federal, Tribal, Military, State, County and Local/Municipal levels of preparedness, planning, response and recovery for all-risk/all-hazard events,” according to an online overview of the system. 

The new solicitation “is intended to present an overview of the transition of SCOUT to a new solution called NEXT-GEN SCOUT.”  

The solicitation was announced over the weekend “to all my technologist and innovative friends” in a LinkedIn post by Marlon Paulo, the California Department of Technology’s deputy director for statewide technology procurement.

Paulo also posted a public invitation to a Vendor Education Day, today at 2:30 p.m., which potential participants are “highly encouraged” to attend. More information on the session is available through the CalOES website, and registration may be completed by emailing Emily Klahn. Applications must be received by 10 a.m. Dec. 3.

According to CalOES, “NEXT-GEN SCOUT shall provide a comprehensive, visual picture of the operating environment during an emergency incident.” The tool must provide the following:

• A common operating picture (COP) that allows for the contribution of data and analytics from and sharing of information with various public and private organizations.
• The ability to display multiple incidents simultaneously.
• Must operate in an all-hazard environment.
• Must provide a modern and easy-to-use user experience.
• Field workers with spotty/or no Internet coverage must be able to use the application and have a synchronizing capability (store-and-forward) with no loss of data.
• Provide access controls for varied users: first responders, emergency managers, utilities, private and public organizations including government agencies such as, CAL FIRE, National Weather Service, FEMA, US Forest Service, Coast Guard and Tribal.

In addition, the online solicitation notes: “A cloud solution is preferred, and relevant CalOES technologies include Microsoft 365, Azure AD, Esri, Salesforce, Mulesoft, Tableau, Docusign, GovDelivery, SendGrid. MFA (multi-factor authentication) is being enabled, and multiple SSO implementations have been deployed.”

The specs include a long list of specific requirements addressing functionality and security. Among the security requirements is compliance with Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) Version 2.0.

This will be a challenge-based procurement, with a budget that’s yet to be determined.