# Presentation: 348188

## Storage to Knowledge:

- The Roles of Databases, Documents, KM, XML
- & the FEA DRM

- Owen Ambur
- Co-Chair, xmlCoP & Project Manager, ET.gov
- October 11, 2005

## Some Pertinent Issues

- Separation of Content from Presentation
- Databases Versus Documents
- Role of XML
- Metadata and Management
- Demystification of Knowledge Management
- Data, Management & Reality
- Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA)
- Data Reference Model (DRM)
- Recent GCN Coverage

## Separation of Content from Presentation

- Invitation for Waste, Fraud & Abuse

- How do you know what you signed?
- Font same color as background
- PDF-A
- ISO
- XFDL
- W3C Note
- IBM acquisition of PureEdge
- Legal presentation
- Four corners of the document

## Documents Versus Databases

- Databases
- Dynamic, manipulation of data
- Single points of failure
- Insiders have motives
- Attractive targets for hackers (ID theft, etc.)
- Opposite of requirements for records management
- Documents
- Data in context
- Without context data is meaningless, or worse
- Four corners – legal presentation
- Attributes of record - Integrity, reliability, authenticity, usability
- (ISO 15489)
- Metadata specifies attributes (quality) of record

## Role of XML

- Bridges the gap between documents & databases
- Original records can be maintained in inviolate XML format throughout full life-cycles
- Databases can be automatically audited by comparing to original XML records
- Reduces risk
- Plain text – WYSWYG
- Eliminates single points of failure (receipts & COOP)
- International standard, nonproprietary *lingua franca*
- Interoperability at data/record layer – short- & long-term

## Metadata & Management

- In IT systems, Metadata = Management
- Enables automation of management functions
- Little or no metadata means:
- Little or no management
- Records of poor and uncertain quality
- How much metadata (management)?
- Before reaching point of diminishing returns
- Beneficiaries not bearing costs
- Embedded versus external metadata

## Demystification of KM

- Knowledge Management = Profiles of:
- Records (explicit knowledge)
- People (tacit knowledge)
- Profiles = Metadata
- Metadata in XML = Interoperability

## Management of Knowledge

- Inappropriate to try to “manage” behavior
- Demeaning to law-abiding adults
- People are NOT human “capital”
- At least not in a free and open society
- Inappropriate NOT to manage records
- If a mind is a terrible thing to waste, what about the collective knowledge and wisdom of humankind throughout history?
- If records properly managed, behavior will take care of itself.

## Data, Records & Reality

- Data is NOT reality
- Except to the degree we may have agreed to conduct business on the basis of records having the attributes outlined in ISO 15489
*Data & Reality*, William Kent
- _[http://](http://mysite.verizon.net/ambur/datareality.htm)__[mysite.verizon.net/ambur/datareality.htm](http://mysite.verizon.net/ambur/datareality.htm)_
- Records are best “test” of reality
- Records & people lacking accessible profiles cease to exist in the new reality of cyberspace
- Why would organizations pay anyone who does not exist in the corporate knowledge repository?
- Sources of power
- _[http://mysite.verizon.net/ambur/French&Raven.htm](http://mysite.verizon.net/ambur/French&Raven.htm)_

## FEA DRM

- Governmentwide profile of data and information
- Description
- Context
- Sharing
- XML schema
- Enable sharing of DRM profiles
- Discovery, access & use of records via:
- Querying elements of metadata profile
- Browsing context/taxonomies

## Recent Relevant GCN Articles

- GAO: Many agencies’ financial management systems inadequate, 9/22/05
- SE Linux embarks on Common Criteria testing. 9/27/05
- Sun to pull plug on trusted Solaris, 10/6/05
- GPO fast tracks FDSys Project, 10/6/05

## GPO FDsys Project

- The Government Printing Office is setting an aggressive timetable for its massive project to digitize nearly every federal document published since the birth of the nation.
- _[http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/37227-1.html](http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/37227-1.html)_
- Stop waste of .gov information through loss &/or inaccessibility

## Trusted Solaris

- The major missing component was a feature called labeled security, which applies a tag identifying the appropriate security level to each data file.
- http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/37225-1.html
- Security tagging metadata
- DRM will specify for .gov data & information

## SELinux

- “... moving away from discretionary access control, so the permissions for usage are out of the hands of users and rogue programs ...”
- http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/37131-1.html
- Records management system cannot be secure if operating system is not.

## Financial Management

- “... Auditors need to perform more comprehensive examinations ...”
- “Problems included nonintegrated financial management systems, inadequate reconciliation procedures, inaccurate or slow recording of financial information, lack of adherence to federal accounting standards and weak system security ...”
- _[http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/37080-1.html](http://www.gcn.com/vol1_no1/daily-updates/37080-1.html)_
- XML enables comprehensive, integrated, and automated auditing and reconciliation in real time

## GAO on Financial Management

- ... all 16 agencies with noncompliant systems lacked accurate and timely reporting ...
- DoD reported $204.8 billion in “unsupported accounting entries” ...
- IRS has info to determine costs, albeit in widely distributed systems that cannot share data ...
- Security control weaknesses “place vast amounts of government assets at risk of inadvertent or deliberate misuse” ...
- GAO-05-881 FFMIA Report, September 2005
- Such systems invite waste, fraud, and abuse

## Questions

- Owen_Ambur@ios.doi.gov
- Co-Chair, xmlCoP & Project Manager, ET.gov