Marietta Police Department submits data to FBI’s N-DEx using Sypherlink’s appliance

Sypherlink, Inc., a data integration software and NIEM conformance provider, has announced that the Marietta Police Department (PD) has successfully submitted data to N-DEx using Sypherlink’s N-DEx Appliance.

The Marietta PD enlisted Sypherlink to help overcome the complex requirements of the FBI’s N-DEx system, including the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) and specific XML schemas.

Sypherlink has been involved with the development and training of NIEM since its inception and has been actively pursuing opportunities to promote N-DEx standards.

“Sypherlink was able to bring to bear our federal standards knowledge and criminal justice information sharing experience specific to N-DEx,” said James Paat, CEO for Sypherlink.

Sypherlink implemented its N-DEx Appliance, a software solution designed specifically to simplify N-DEx deployments, lower costs and accelerate implementations. The N-DEx Appliance offers pre-configured components that provide pre-built mappings to leading records management systems (RMS) and an adapter to N-DEx that generates XML messages in compliance with FBI requirements. 

“Our goal in creating the N-DEx Appliance was to provide a turnkey solution for law enforcement agencies that would remove the barriers to submitting data to N-DEx,” explained Paat, in a press release Sypherlink issued on May 12. “As a partner of the FBI, we realize that the critical success factor for N-DEx is agency participation but the cost, time and complexity involved make it nearly impossible for many agencies. The Marietta PD project proved that there is an easier way.”

According to Paat, most N-DEx implementations to date have taken four to six months to complete and can cost as much as $250,000 due to the amount of custom coding involved. With the N-DEx Appliance, tight partnerships with RMS vendors and Sypherlink’s implementation methodology, the Marietta PD implementation finished in less than 60 days and cost less than $50,000, said the news release. 

“We were extremely pleased with the speed and accuracy in which our N-DEx project was completed,” said Nick Miletic, systems manager for the City of Marietta. “It was clear that Sypherlink’s knowledge and experience with NIEM and N-DEx was vital to the success of our project.”