UC Network Management Featured Article

Motorola Introduces New Cloud Core Solution for Emergency Communications

The nation has seen its share of emergencies lately. Hurricane and derecho damage, wildfire and an ongoing pandemic have made it more important than ever for emergency communications platforms to have unparalleled levels of resiliency and redundancy built in. At the same time, budget crunches in states and municipalities have made it difficult for many emergency services to purchase and maintain hardware for a secondary on-premise network core.

Motorola Solutions recently announced an alternative, what it’s calling “the next generation of mission-critical radio technology and performance.” The company is now offering its new CirrusCentral Core, a cloud-based secondary core for ASTRO 25 P25 land mobile radio (LMR) systems. Available as a subscription service, it remains current with the latest communication software, and it eliminates the need for public safety agencies to maintain a physical, in-building backup core site.

“Resiliency is one of the most important features of ASTRO 25 networks,” said Scott Mottonen, senior vice president of Product, Motorola Solutions, in a statement. “If a master site is impacted by a storm, such as a hurricane or tornado, the system automatically reroutes radio calls to the cloud core for continued communications. With CirrusCentral Core, system managers can access their secondary core virtually, with no need to travel to a physical site in hazardous conditions.”

The solution requires a low upfront investment, no upgrade costs, and pay-per-site pricing to fit an agency’s unique needs. In addition to affordability, it offers security: the CirrusCentral Core is monitored by Motorola Solutions’ team of technology and cybersecurity professionals to ensure it is always up to date and available in an emergency.

CirrusCentral Management provides system administrators with a simple web-based user interface to monitor a radio network that spans a city, county or state. From any location and on any device, they can securely obtain detailed insights about the performance of their system. Motorola said the new solution is expected to be available in early December 2020.

Edited by Maurice Nagle