Chief Information
Officers (CIO) Council
Architecture and
Infrastructure Committee (AIC)
FY 2005 Tasks
The Architecture and Infrastructure Committee
will pursue seven funded tasks in FY 2005, in addition to existing efforts,
such as the Security and Privacy Profile initiative, providing recommendations
on revisions to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-130,
fostering communities of practice on XML and semantic interoperability, among
others. These tasks will result in the
greatest return on investment in terms of the time and dedication put forth by the
committee members and support staff.
Task 1: Evolution of the Federal
Description/Justification
- The Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) Reference Models are independent of
architectural frameworks and provide a common language to express IT assets and
investments. As Cabinet-level agencies
have gained experience expressing their IT investments and assets with the
taxonomy and vocabulary provided in the initial instance of the FEA Reference
Models, difficulties have arisen. Some
agencies have begun to examine whether the taxonomies and language expressed in
the reference models should be extended to allow a more accurate representation
of the broad set of Federal IT systems and investments. Subsequently, this has
warranted the need for governance policies, processes and procedures designed
to assist with the growth and evolution of the FEA Reference Models. A
governance model would attempt to address the following types of questions: “What is the process and associated timeline for modifying
the models?" How and when do
agencies make such recommendations? Who
has what role in evolving the reference models used in the development of the
FEA? How can agencies best use the models for developing and maintaining agency
enterprise architecture?”
The successful evolution of the Federal Enterprise Architecture is rooted in the common language expressed within the structural taxonomy that permits growth, adaptation, and maturity of the Federal Enterprise Architecture. It is this common structure and vocabulary which sets the foundation for expanding the FEA to allow expression of the full set of agencies’ IT assets. Current OMB guidance requires that all IT investments are expressed in terms of the FEA reference models.
This task will examine the structural taxonomy
and vocabulary (elements) of the current instance of the FEA Reference Models
and will make policy and process recommendations regarding reference model
evolution. It will leverage the work
begun by NASA and other Cabinet-level agencies, such as DoD
with experience in expressing their IT assets within the FEA Reference Models
and extending those reference models for better alignment.
Lead Staff - Roy Mabry
and John McManus
Task 2. Update the Service Component-Based
Architectures paper dated June 2004.
Description/Justification
– The CIO Council in collaboration with the FEAPMO and the Industry Advisory
Council published a paper on Service Component-Based Architectures in June
2004. In an effort to keep current, this
task involves updating the paper so that is aligns with the next release of the
Service and Component Reference Model (SRM) and Technology Reference Model
(TRM). It is also suggested that the
paper be updated to reflect the Component Lifecycle and the Solutions Development
Lifecycle, along with a revised glossary as required.
Lead Staff – Ren Cahoon
and Bobby Jones
Task 3. Redesign portal for CORE.gov and examine
integration with other registries and
repositories.
Description/Justification
– CORE.gov is
intended to serve as a government source for business
process and technical components.
As such it requires a front-end that will integrate with other
registries and repositories, including the Chief Architects Forum &
Exchange (CAFÉ). This task will focus on
redesigning the front-end of CORE.gov so that it can accommodate multiple user
views (e.g. project lead user vs. anonymous), including a view for a
non-technical user. This task will also
examine how to integrate with other repositories, consolidating “best
practices” in a single location.
Lead Staff – Ren Cahoon
and Marion Royal
[NOTE- A STEERING COMMITTEE IS IN THE PROCESS OF
BEING FORMED]
Task 4. Develop a unifying framework for enterprise
transformation and modernization.
Description/Justification
– While Agencies may associate with the same instance of the FEA RM taxonomy,
for example human resources, they have difficulty relating their architectures
to each other due to the application of different architecture methods. As GAO reported, agencies use TEAF, FEAF, DoDAF and Zachman methodologies. A common methodology is needed to facilitate
discussions about cross agency work, enabling IT and other enterprise issues
such as resources and policy and process issues.
This task will provide a common framework for cross-agency (super-enterprise) architecting that would apply to all Federal agencies and will complement the Common Process View previously developed by the FEAPMO and will leverage existing architecture methods. The framework will focus on decision-making throughout the enterprise life cycle, explicitly showing linkages to the FEA Reference Models. It will build on the existing frameworks to become a higher-level abstraction to which all others can relate.
The original task description is being amended
to incorporate subsequent strategizing on the part of the Governance
Subcommittee. It was agreed that due to the limited funding, the establishment
of a common framework for cross agency (super-enterprise) architecting would have
to be accomplished in an incremental fashion.
Numerous strategies have been explored to create an effective product
that would benefit from a wide "Community of Practice" involvement. It was decided that the first set of funding
would be used to create a clear business case for the effort to ensure that the
problem is well defined and that the intended benefits are well-established to
justify why such a project was necessary.
It has also been suggested that the development of such a product will
need to follow the emerging semantic technologies concepts, especially Semantic
Interoperability, and eventually require the engineering of at least an upper
level ontology to create the foundation for conceptual agreement. This approach will sell the problem (and come
up with a good set of requirements/benefits) before we sell the solution. .
Lead Staff - Roy Mabry
and Patrick Heinig
Task 5. Support the vertical integration of EA.
Description/Justification
– The problems of vertical stovepipes and the lack of interoperability will
continue to pervade as long as local, state and regional governments continue
to work independently with individual federal agencies along their
long-established business lines. The vision
of "interoperability" is difficult to achieve at present due to the
sheer volume of uncoordinated IT development occurring at any one time. State CIOs, as represented by NASCIO, have
expressed a desire to have a fundamental conceptual discussion about how
federal and state governments should proceed with implementing their respective
enterprise architectures.
In the spirit of developing a
national enterprise architecture, this task seeks to clearly define the
perceived problem and identify key strategies for cooperation between CIOs at
different levels of government. The
funding will be used to research both the problem and solution. The methodology includes - 1) analysis of existing articles and research on the problem and solutions; 2) interviews with key parties; 3) a facilitated meeting of key federal agencies whose missions rely strongly on state and local partnership; 4) high-level analysis of lessons learned from the 25 Presidential Priority E-Gov initiatives, the Lines of Business Initiative, and a review of relevant government-wide policy, legislation, and executive orders; and 5) face-to-face meetings of key intergovernmental players to discuss the problem and key strategies to solve it.
This AIC task will be done in full partnership
with the GSA Office of Citizen Services and work within their existing IT
intergovernmental partnership program to ensure the involvement of the right
state/locals associations, including NASCIO.
Lead Staff - Governance
Subcommittee Task: Roy Mabry Co- Chair; Task lead: Mary McCaffery
Task 6. Develop identification and validation processes for emerging
technologies.
Description/Justification
- The Emerging Technology Subcommittee of the CIO Council’s Architecture and
Infrastructure Committee is charged with examining crosscutting emerging technology
components and developing recommendations for their use in the Government. This task will focus on defining a process
that will allow the IT innovation lifecycle to be managed on a Government-wide
basis that accelerates the discovery, validation, and maturation of components
that improve performance and the delivery of services to citizens.
A relationship between the overall proposed
process and CORE.gov is envisioned, along with the ability to accept
submissions from the vendor/integrator community. While CORE.gov will focus on submissions from
the Government community, there is value in having a process through which a component would
“graduate” to CORE.gov once a sufficient level of subscription and commitment
to the component exists within the Government community.
Lead Staff –John McManus,
Susan Turnbull, and Owen Ambur
Task 7. Support the Chief Architects Forum
Description/Justification
– Given the recent creation of the Chief Architects Forum (CAF), it is
important that adequate infrastructure and support be provided to ensure the
value of these groups. The CAF
fosters agency collaboration on addressing EA challenges and applying best
practices. The dissemination of best
practice information, along with effective communication, coordination, and
outreach is critical. Support for the
series of activities below will aid in this endeavor.
Lead Staff – Roy Mabry,
Mary McCaffery, and Ira Grossman