U.S. Geological Survey's ShakeCast: A cloud-based future

When an earthquake occurs, the U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) ShakeMap
portrays the extent of potentially damaging shaking. In turn, the ShakeCast
system, a freely-available, post-earthquake situational awareness application,
automatically retrieves earthquake shaking data from ShakeMap, compares
intensity measures against users’ facilities, sends notifications of potential
damage to responsible parties, and generates facility damage assessment
maps and other web-based products for emergency managers and responders.
ShakeCast is particularly suitable for earthquake planning and response purposes
by Departments of Transportation (DOTs), critical facility and lifeline utilities,
large businesses, engineering and financial services, and loss and risk modelers.
Recent important developments to the ShakeCast system and its user base are
described. The newly-released Version 3 of the ShakeCast system encompasses
advancements in seismology, earthquake engineering, and information
technology applicable to the legacy ShakeCast installation (Version 2). In
particular, this upgrade includes a full statistical fragility analysis framework for
general assessment of structures as part of the near real-time system, direct
access to additional earthquake-specific USGS products besides ShakeMap
(PAGER, DYFI?, tectonic summary, etc.), significant improvements in the
graphical user interface, including a console view for operations centers, and
custom, user-defined hazard and loss modules. The release also introduces a
new adaption option to port ShakeCast to the "cloud". Employing Amazon
Web Services (AWS), users now have a low-cost alternative to local hosting,
by fully offloading hardware, software, and communication obligations to the
cloud. Other advantages of the "ShakeCast Cloud" strategy include (1)
Reliability and robustness of offsite operations, (2) Scalability naturally
accommodated, (3), Serviceability, problems reduced due to software and
hardware uniformity, (4) Testability, freely available for new users, (5) Remotely
supported, allowing expert-facilitated maintenance, (6) Adoptability,
simplified with disk images, and (7) Security, built in at the very high level
associated with AWS. The ShakeCast user base continues to expand and
broaden. For example, Caltrans, the prototypical ShakeCast user and
development supporter, has been providing guidance to other DOTs on the
use of the National Bridge Inventory (NBI) database to implement
fully-functional ShakeCast systems in their states. A long-term goal underway
is to further "connect the DOTs" via a Transportation Pooled Fund (TPF) with
participating state DOTs. We also review some of the many other users and
uses of ShakeCast. Lastly, on the hazard input front, we detail related
ShakeMap improvements and ongoing advancements in estimating the
likelihood of shaking-induced secondary hazards at structures, facilities,
bridges, and along roadways due to landslides and liquefaction, and
implemented within the ShakeCast framework.