Engineering resilient information systems for emergency management

Resilience is often a qualitative property that is considered fundamental for communities affected by disasters. The concept, along with its variations, has been explored in several domains, such as warfare, business continuity, ecology, computer security, and infrastructure management. The lessons learned constitute a valuable starting point for building resilient socio-technical systems. In previous work, we have described resilience principles at the systems level by reviewing related studies in several research areas. This paper organizes the principles into a conceptual framework for resilient design, which includes a set of nonfunctional requirements for resilience and an assessment methodology for evaluating architectural work from a resilience standpoint. After having presented this conceptual framework, we discuss its application in our collaboration with the Victorian Fire Services Commissioner. This collaboration has led to the specification of a high-level reference architecture for the information interoperability platform that will support emergency services in Victoria. © 1957-2012 IBM.