POTTSTOWN, Pa., October 06, 2008 -- CODY Systems, the industry leader in the real-time collection, analysis and sharing of critical data for public safety, law enforcement and intelligence agencies, today announced version 4.0 of C.O.B.R.A., its real-time cross-jurisdiction data sharing and analysis system, powered by ExpressBridge.

C.O.B.R.A., is a proven suite of applications that enable agencies to share data on their own terms, delivering real-time multi-jurisdictional information to officers and agents in the field, regardless of what disparate systems each has, in a secure manner, respectful of agencies’ sharing rules, privacy concerns, and prevailing data standards. Developed with the goal of keeping street officers and tactical agents safe and instantly informed, C.O.B.R.A. has evolved into a mission-critical digital shield that police officers, who use the smart-client on their MDCs or PDAs to run names, vehicles, incidents, and other entities from across jurisdictional borders, simply cannot live without.

Utilizing CODY’s proven Silo Approach™, C.O.B.R.A. keeps each contributing agency’s information segregated from all others in its own Insulated Data Silo. Each agency maintains control over its Silo, including what information to share, and what different users can see. This approach has met stringent privacy and criminal history standards in some of the most critical jurisdictions in the United States, and was developed initially in conjunction with public safety practitioners.

“First Preventers need an up-to-the-second picture of situations, from seemingly routine field stops to tactical ops. We don’t care what ‘language’ a data source speaks. What matters is that we have the right info at the right place at the right time, updated to stay completely in time-synch with local systems,” said Lt. Jeff Merriman, Jasper County, MO., Sheriff’s Office.

First introduced in 1998, C.O.B.R.A. now offers web-based smart clients requiring zero deployment, broader support for disparate systems, even faster response time in relation to real-time data sharing, as well as conformance with prevailing data standards, such as NIEM 2.0. The increased speed, standards conformance, and broader disparate systems support comes from the incorporation of ExpressBridge, a modular data fusion framework that enables real-time translation and transmission of data from one data source to another, regardless of the local vendors, databases, or schemas used.

Developed in-house by CODY Systems, ExpressBridge (EXB) allows disparate systems to speak the same language and share data in real-time. Real-time in the ExpressBridge context means that as data is entered at the local level, within seconds, it is translated and available to other agencies, according to data-sharing profiles, access and business rules, and security controlled by the sharing agencies. EXB leverages a constantly growing library of re-usable “templates” for each source provider to bridge the language gap through a set-it-and-forget-it process. ExpressBridge keeps all data sources in real-time synch, over the Web, pushing updates seconds after they are made in the source. One exciting feature of ExpressBridge and C.O.B.R.A. is that any connected agency becomes instantly NIEM 2.0 conformant, just by virtue of participating. Further, data can be pushed up-stream or “cross-stream” to systems such as the FBI N-DEx system or other data-sharing systems.

“There is a language gap among public safety data systems today. With hundreds of RMS vendors, data warehouses, and other rich data sources speaking their own languages, the challenge faced by the community is how to efficiently, securely, and responsibly bridge this gap by integrating and sharing this critical information in real-time with those who need it most - our nation’s First Preventers,” said David N. Heffner, Vice President of Marketing for CODY Systems. “So often we talk of the need for first responders to have access to information, and rightfully so. But we can’t forget the ones on the front lines trying to prevent the next incident. These First Preventers don’t care what system or vendor the data is coming from, they just need it. They deserve data that is available immediately as it is entered at the local level, not refreshed once an hour, or day, or week. That is REAL real-time, and it’s what data-sharing should be. That’s why we developed ExpressBridge and C.O.B.R.A. – to bridge the language gap and allow these disparate systems to speak the same language, and to drive this data out to where it is needed most, WHEN it is needed most.”

About CODY Systems

CODY Systems is an industry leader in the collection, analysis, and sharing of critical data for public safety, law enforcement, and intelligence agencies for over 30 years. A wholly owned and privately held American company with all operations in the United States, CODY Systems specializes in integrated data management solutions and interoperable cross-platform information-sharing for First Preventers. CODY Systems provides state, local and federal agencies the power of its CodyLinksTM relational linking technology and proven technology for real-time data fusion across disparate systems. CODY's industry-leading products include: The CODY Public Safety Suite (Records, Dispatch, Investigations & Intelligence analysis, Mobile Field Reporting and Dispatch Link, etc.), C.O.B.R.A.TM vendor-independent real-time data-sharing and analysis system, ExpressBridge Real-time Data Fusion Framework, and more.