Consider this scenario: A large tanker carrying hazardous material suffers propulsion system failure in the Gulf of Mexico. How does one actively manage this emergency in real-time and what is the correct course of action to get the vessel safely to the nearest port, avoid further disasters, and alert nearby ships, oil platforms, and environmental agencies? The smart guys over at IBM created a very compelling Maritime Domain Situational Awareness Mashup using three key principles:
• Discovery, normalization, and fusion of multiple disparate data sources
• Display multiple layers of related data in a geospatial map aiding situational awareness and analysis
• Applies business rules to detect situations; automate task procedures, and guide user interaction where dictated by procedure, best practices, or workflow
IBM defines Situational Awareness as “the understanding of data and events within a given space and time and understanding the meaning in the present and near future [and] deal with multiple sources of data… often rendered in a… map”. Needless to say, pulling real-time web data from multiple sources to make time-critical decisions can be applied not only to emergency situations, but also to anti-terrorism, financial forecasting, price monitoring, competitive intelligence and fraud detection, just to name a few.
What is interesting here is the critical dependency on Web Data to deliver the full value of a Mashup. All the data used in the Maritime example (vessel information, weather, tide schedules, port locations, and nearby ship routes) is only available through public websites (most of which have no APIs).
The real-time access and REST service-enablement to this critical, situational data was accomplished with Kapow OnDemand.
This is just another example of how Web Data Services can be used to power mission critical Situational Awareness by leveraging the gold-mine of data sources available on the Web (including public web, as well as federal, government and partner web sites).
We’re proud to the have creators of this mashup joining us in our booth at the IBM Information on Demand Conference to show this compelling demonstration. If you are at the show, come by and check it out.
By: Stefan Andreasen 
