In this episode, Nathan Sirois from Balsam Technologies talks about managed IT for public safety and first responder agencies. He explains why downtime is mission critical, how secure access and CJIS compliance affect daily operations, and why backup planning and rapid local support matter for police and fire departments.
John Maher: Hi, I’m John Maher, and I’m here today with Nathan Sirois, Support Engineer at Balsam Technologies, a managed IT services company based in Gloucester, Massachusetts, offering cybersecurity, IT infrastructure, network support, cloud migrations, data backup, and more. Today we’re talking about managed IT for public safety and first responders. Welcome, Nathan.
Nathan Sirois: Thank you, John. Glad to be here.
Mission-Critical IT for Public Safety Agencies
John: Nathan, why is technology support for police, fire, and first response agencies considered mission critical? And how do the consequences of downtime differ from those faced by regular companies and offices?
Nathan: So most companies and offices, when you’re worried about IT issues and troubleshooting them, lives aren’t on the line. When you come into an organization like a police department, a fire department, any other sort of emergency service department, there are critical situations going down at every moment, and you really can’t afford to have technical issues come in and get in the way. So having a company that both understands those issues that you are facing and knows how to streamline them to prevent your staff from having any issues with supporting the aid that people need is essential.
Secure Field Access for First Responders
John: And how can departments provide officers and first responders with secure access to information that they need from stations and in vehicles and field locations without making that access slow and cumbersome for those folks?
Nathan: What it takes first is understanding both the compliance that your organization is subject to, and then how to streamline that to make it convenient for your officers. So for police departments and fire departments, for example, having standard CJIS compliance in place and actually training your officers on how both those practices help your organization and how to navigate through them so that people are never confused about shared accounts, to log into something, or where do they go to get the files that they need for a specific case that’s being worked on.
Maybe there’s a mission critical incident going down at that exact moment in time, and somebody doesn’t have that training to know how to navigate to the application needed for alerting other members of the team of this situation that is currently underway. So just having that training in place for your staff, as well as having somebody who can help you navigate through the most convenient ways to meet compliance standards for your department is really important to have in place.
CJIS Compliance for Police Departments
John: Tell me a little bit more about CJIS compliance and what that means in practical everyday terms for a police department and employees who access criminal justice information and other secure information like that.
Nathan: So practically the way that CJIS impacts your department is the goal of the whole system is to limit the amount of access that people have to critical files, mainly outside of your department, but that can also impact your department inside as well. Your organization really should only be sharing certain documentation with the people that need it. And as a government entity, it’s important that you stay on top of both what you should and shouldn’t be accessing.
Along with that, having standard procedures in place for people physically interacting with the department coming in the front door. You may not realize, but a lot of the actual procedures for having your IT come in and troubleshoot your network closet really should be taking some pretty important and scrupulous CJIS standards and compliance procedures into place. You could end up letting somebody in to your entire network, if you’re not careful physically, that doesn’t even work for the managed service provider that you think is supporting your organization.
So being really careful about both how your actual staff members are interacting with your technology, as well as any outside service providers or other organizations that support your department is really important to keep on top of.
Backup and Recovery for Critical Public Safety Data
John: And how can public safety agencies protect and recover case files and incident reports, inspection reports, and other important information if they experience a ransomware issue or a hardware failure or maybe a damage to a facility or something like that? How important is recovery and backup of those types of systems?
Nathan: For departments like the ones you’re describing, John, backup is often one of the largest things that comes to mind as far as IT needs go. Having a customized backup and disaster recovery strategy in place for those organizations is essential.
And having a managed service provider that you can work with in detail on both the amount of data that you need protected, how long do you need your backups? Do you need backups done daily? Do you need them done weekly? Do you need a backup of your systems every two hours?
It’s really important that whoever is building your backup systems, whether it be a part of your department or someone else’s, or an outside provider, it’s important that they understand those standards that you are subject to and practically what your department needs to meet both its security standards and also its standards for backing up and protecting the files and systems that you rely on the most.
Local IT Support for Police and Fire Departments
John: And why are rapid local support and coordination with specialized public safety software and equipment vendors particularly important for police and fire departments?
Nathan: Just like people in your local municipal area depend on twenty four seven emergency support from a local department that can come when they need it most. If somebody’s having a heart attack, somebody fell down a set of stairs in the middle of the night, it’s 3:00 AM, the police department gets called, they’re on the way. First responders are going.
If you have technical issues that are coming up in the middle of the night while situations like that are going on, you need your managed service provider to be able to do the same thing as well. When you go with a cheaper overseas option for a managed service provider or a one-man show to support your department, or honestly, even a lot of the town municipal departments, they’re not going to be able to support you in the way that a localized and really professional, proactive managed service provider is going to be able to help you.
So having a local provider that can come on site when you need it, whether it be in the middle of the night, in the middle of a workday, whatever it is that you need, you need to be able to have a responsive IT provider that is taking your IT situations and problems as seriously as they are impacting your organization. And that’s just really essential for your department.
24/7 IT Support for First Responders
John: Yeah. So you think having them be local, having your IT support company be local, is really important because if they’re not able to do it remotely, they’re able to hop in a car and get there and be there in person to help you to get those systems back online.
Nathan: Exactly, John. You really can’t count on it these days. As much as you plan and try to do everything you can to prevent IT issues, it really isn’t realistic for most first responders to have IT support that’s only available during normal business hours. And if you are a department that currently only has that set up in place, it’s really important that you examine both where you can go for emergency support if you need it, if that’s available at all, and also the systems that may cause you the most issues of downtime, in the meantime, as you’re seeking out a 24/7 to give you that reliable IT support that you need.
John: All right, well, that’s really great information, Nathan. Thanks again for speaking with me today.
Nathan: Absolutely.
John: And for more information, you can visit the Balsam Technologies website at balsamtechnologies.com or call 978-281-3339.
