MIS have been providing systems to the Ambulance Services in the UK and Ireland for a quarter of a century, it is obvious that we aren’t just doing something right, we really must be doing very little wrong!
Stewart McLaughlin,
Group Managing Directror

C3 Virtual Control Solution

Alert C3 takes full advantage of the need for 'Virtualisation' of the Ambulance Control Function. The architecture has been developed specifically for this deployment option, this was built in from the outset as the move to both National and Regional Control centres has long been on the horizon.

Centralised Database

The C3 database is based upon Microsoft SQL 2005 technology, this provides the power and the scalability to allow for potentially hundreds of simultaneous users, in  fact the MIS group of companies already have systems which routinely have 300-400 hundred users on-line at any one time. Ambulance systems so far have not met this capacity however we fully expect during 2008 that one of our major customers will grow to approximately 150  concurrent users.

Client Software = High Performance

The C3 client has been developed to take full advantage of the power of today's modern PC, without breaking the bank. The demand for real-time, up to the second, information for the dispatch team has never been  greater, anything less than an instantaneous response will have a direct effect on the operational performance of the service. C3 has been optimised for sub 1 second response throughout the application, including the integrated GIS features, which C3 makes extensive use of, to assist both the Call-Taker and the Dispatcher.

Wide Area Networking

Of course all of the above leading edge performance is limited if this was only available within the local area network. With C3 this isn't an issue, wide area networking response times are demonstrably as quick as local users. The bandwidth requirement is light too. With a recommended bandwidth allocation of only 300-400 kb, remote connectivity and virtual control operations are very affordable. This bandwidth drops significantly the more remote users are introduced, for example when 20 or more remote users are fully operational the required bandwidth is virtually halved again, at a mere 200kb per client, all this without any loss in performance.

Disaster Recovery

The user of Microsoft SQL2005 database mirroring allows for full off-site backup and recovery operations. This is of course in addition to the local resilience that is always built in as part of an MIS solution. Again due to the system design the bandwidth requirement for remote database mirroring is also minimal, keeping costs down, and at the same time providing what is arguably the best, most cost effective disaster recovery solution available - anywhere.

Total Peace of Mind

Of course as they say "No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy", therefore C3 has been designed to provide the ultimate Disaster Recovery facility, "Fallback Guardian". This 'belts and braces, and then some" approach provides a real-time output of all the current and waiting incidents, with up to the second status, and a full, again up to the second, summary of all resources that are on the system in a printable output, for instance recovery, no matter what the circumstances. Fallback Guardian operates in both Local and Remote mode, ensuring that in the worst of bad case scenarios you are fully covered.