A Cloud Computing Application for Synchronized Disaster Response Operations

During disaster response, key resources are supplied from a variety of channels including: government agencies, volunteer organizations, commercial businesses, educational institutions and others. While these entities have efficient internal methods of communication and coordination, interorganizational collaboration has often been hindered by political, social, and technological challenges. This paper examines the challenges to collaboration among responding entities and proposes a technology-enabled self-synchronization framework for sharing information using a distributed, highly scalable, web application based on the cloud computing technologies. The proposed design applies the unique benefits of cloud computing to the disaster response domain. This notional design facilitates communication among a broad range of public and private groups without requiring these organizations to compromise competitive advantage.