Federal Enterprise Architecture and E-Government: Issues for Information Technology Management
Released: 2008-04-10T00:00:00

Background

The federal government spends approximately $70 billion annually on information technology (IT) goods and services. The Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) has the potential to serve as a critical IT management tool for achieving greater efficiencies and breaking down the so-called "stove pipes" that separate individual departments and agencies. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) describes the FEA as playing a central role to "ultimately transform the Federal government into a citizen-centered, results-oriented, and market-based organization as set forth in the President's Management Agenda (PMA)." The FEA emphasizes developing interoperable standards, facilitating information sharing, and increasing cross-agency collaboration. The FEA is also expected to play a significant role in the future development of federal e-government and homeland security initiatives. With these activities in mind, OMB describes the three primary objectives, or goals, of the FEA as:

improving the utilization of information resources to achieve a citizen-centered government, resulting in proactive policy and improved decision-making; increasing enterprise architecture practice maturity [experience using enterprise architecture planning techniques to make decisions regarding the procurement and use of information technology] government-wide, resulting in better alignment of IT investments with mission performance; and increasing cross-agency, intergovernment, and public-private sector collaboration, resulting in increased common solutions and cost savings.

What is an Enterprise Architecture?

In the mid-1980s, John Zachman, a business planning consultant, developed the Zachman Framework, which was designed to serve as a blueprint, or an architecture, to facilitate the integration of IT systems. The "enterprise," for which an architecture is created, refers to either a "single organization or mission area that transcends more than one organizational boundary (e.g., financial management, homeland security)." The architecture represents a "big picture" view of how the enterprise operates and carries out its responsibilities. An enterprise architecture (EA) serves as a blueprint of the business operations of an organization, and the information and technology needed to carry out these operations, both currently and prospectively. As such, it is an information technology management and planning tool. It is designed to be comprehensive and scalable, to account for future growth needs. EA planning represents a business-driven approach to IT management that emphasizes interoperability and information sharing.

Since the development of the Zachman Framework, various parts of the federal government have attempted to work with EAs. For example, the Clinger-Cohen Act ( P.L. 104-106 ), passed in 1996, tasked agency chief information officers (CIOs) with, among other responsibilities, "developing, maintaining, and facilitating the implementation of a sound and integrated information technology architecture for the executive agency." The Clinger-Cohen Act defined information technology architecture as

an integrated framework for evolving or maintaining existing information technology and acquiring new information technology to achieve the agency's strategic goals and information resources management goals.

In September 1999, the Federal Chief Information Officers (CIO) Council issued its FEA Framework, which was described as a "conceptual model that begins to define a documented and coordinated structure for cross-cutting businesses and design developments in the Government." In the glossary of the document, the FEA itself is defined as

A strategic information asset base, which defines the business, the information necessary to operate the business, the technologies necessary to support the business operations, and the transitional processes necessary for implementing new technologies in response to the changing business needs. It is a representation or blueprint.

The E-Government Act ( P.L. 107-347 ), passed in 2002, tasks the Administrator of the Office of E-Government with overseeing the development of EAs, both within and across agencies. The act defined enterprise architecture as

(A) means—(I) a strategic information asset base, which defines the mission; (ii) the information necessary to perform the mission; (iii) the technologies necessary to perform the mission; and (iv) the transitional processes for implementing new technologies in response to changing mission needs; and (B) includes—(I) a baseline architecture; (ii) a target architecture; and (iii) a sequencing plan.

What is the Federal Enterprise Architecture?

The FEA is a planning and management tool used to guide federal information technology investments, with a specific focus on improving efficiency and identifying common applications that can be used government-wide. It is designed to ensure that IT investments support the functions of government, rather than allowing technology choices determine how the government carries out its operations. OMB Circular A-11, Preparation and Submission of Budget Estimates , last updated in June 2006, requires federal departments and agencies to demonstrate that their information technology investments align with FEA standards and guidelines in order to receive OMB approval. As a whole, the FEA is intended to "enable the federal government to identify opportunities to leverage technology to

reduce redundancy; facilitate horizontal (cross-federal) and vertical (federal, state, and local) information sharing; establish a direct relationship between IT and mission/program performance to support citizen-centered, customer-focused government; and maximize IT investments to better achieve mission outcomes."

FEA Leadership

Ongoing activities related to the development of the FEA are carried out through the FEA Program Management Office (FEA PMO), which was established in February 2002 and is part of OMB. The manager of the FEA PMO is commonly referred to as the federal chief enterprise architect. Robert Haycock is recognized as serving as the first federal chief architect when he began as acting manager of the FEA PMO in June 2002. He was later named to the position permanently in October 2003. Following Robert Haycock's return to the National Business Center at the Department of Interior in April 2004, the position was filled on an interim basis by Richard Brozen, who was detailed to OMB from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) until October 2004. In January 2005, Richard Burk began as the new chief architect, after serving as the chief architect at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). He held this position until his retirement from government service in September 2007. In October 2007 Kshemendra Paul was detailed from the Department of Justice to OMB as the acting chief architect. In January 2008 he was named to the position permanently.

Chief Architects Forum (CAF)

To facilitate ongoing enterprise architecture efforts across the federal government, the Architecture and Infrastructure Committee of the federal CIO Council created the Chief Architects Forum (CAF) in April 2004. The members of the CAF include the chief architects from federal departments and agencies. These individuals are responsible for ensuring that the technical infrastructures of their agencies are able to fully support the operational needs of their agencies. While this requires a strong understanding of the business functions of their agencies, enterprise architects are primarily focused just on building and maintaining the technology (hardware and software). In contrast, CIOs are generally responsible for both operational and technological issues and serve at a higher, executive-level capacity. Also, while the department-level CIO position and responsibilities are statutorily defined by the Clinger-Cohen Act ( P.L. 104-106 ), individuals serving as chief architects may be doing so in addition to other assigned responsibilities. The CAF meets quarterly and, similar to the CIO Council, serves as a means for sharing information and identifying solutions to common problems.

Reference Models

The FEA is composed of five reference models: Performance, Business, Service, Data, and Technical. Each of the reference models represents specific aspects of the FEA, and provides a framework, or a shared language, for departments and agencies to develop technology solutions that can be used by the federal government collectively. The reference models are updated as needed to reflect changes in applications and services. Brief descriptions of the five reference models, drawn from the EA website, are as follows:

Performance Reference Model —a framework for measuring the output of major information technology investments and their contributions to program performance. Business Reference Model —a framework for describing the federal government business operations independent of the agencies that perform them. Service Component Reference Model —a framework for identifying information technology service components (applications) used to support business and/or performance objectives. Data Reference Model —a framework that, at an aggregate level, describes the data and information used to support government program delivery and business operations. Technical Reference Model —a framework for describing the standards, specifications, and technologies that support and enable the delivery of service components (applications) and capabilities.

The OMB developed the FEA reference models through its FEA Program Management Office, in conjunction with the Federal CIO Council and the General Services Administration (GSA), for federal agencies and departments to use in their IT budget and planning process. The Performance Reference Model (PRM) provides a standardized framework for measuring the contribution of major IT initiatives that fulfill existing legislatively-mandated management processes. The processes that the PRM emphasizes are drawn primarily from the E-Government Act of 2002, the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996, and the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) of 1993.

While the PRM emphasizes government performance goals applicable to nearly all executive branch agencies, OMB describes the Business Reference Model (BRM) as the foundation of the FEA itself. The BRM is based on a functional view of government operations, rather than an organizational view. This orientation reflects the business-focused nature of enterprise architecture IT management.

The Service Component Reference Model (SRM), in turn, is intended to identify applications and components that, independent of their business function, can provide a foundation of technologies that are reusable government-wide.

The Data Reference Model (DRM) identifies standards for harmonizing how data is described, categorized, and shared across the federal government, with an emphasis on information sharing and data reuse by applications in the SRM .

The Technical Reference Model (TRM) identifies the core technologies and standards for facilitating the reuse of applications and components in the SRM , with an emphasis on interoperability and security.

The five reference models were collectively updated and released as the Consolidated Reference Model (CRM) Version 2.0 in June 2006 and updated again most recently in October 2007 (version 2.3). The reference models are updated annually and are used in preparing the federal budget. A graphical representation of the relationship of the five reference models to each other, as it appears in various OMB documents and presentations, is included below.

In December 2006, the FEA PMO released the Federal Transition Framework (FTF) Version 1.0. The FTF is described as a "single information source for government-wide IT policy objectives and cross-agency initiatives." It encompasses initiatives such as the Quicksilver projects and the Lines of Business projects, as well as other government-wide initiatives, such as the effort to transition all federal agency network backbones to Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) and Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 (HSPD-12) to develop a common identification standard for all federal employees and contractors.

The FTF extends the FEA reference models by providing a "catalog of architectural information and implementation guidance for cross-agency initiatives" that is aligned with the reference models of the FEA. The FTF is intended to help agencies tailor their own enterprise architectures to be compatible with the cross-agency initiatives, and to ensure agencies' budget proposals support their enterprise architecture transition strategies (the tasks and milestones that define what needs to be accomplished to transition from their current EAs to their target EAs that will better facilitate cross-agency initiatives). To that end, the FTF is intended to accomplish four larger goals:

increase agency awareness and participation in cross-agency initiatives; increase the alignment of agency enterprise architecture with federal IT policy decisions or other forms of official guidance; increase sharing and reuse of common cross-agency business processes, service components, and technology standards; and increase collaboration through agency participation in cross-agency communities of practice.

Lines of Business Initiatives

The first generation of Bush Administration e-government initiatives, sometimes referred to as the Quicksilver projects, were proposed in 2001. Since that time, these initiatives have been mostly successful in achieving various project-specific milestones and objectives, although collectively attempts to attain full cross-agency collaboration have been somewhat limited. The OMB expressed an interest in having the next generation of e-government projects have a broader government-wide character. To that end, in spring 2004, after reviewing data collected from agencies for the development of the FEA and formulating the annual federal budget, OMB identified "five major collaborative initiatives to transform government, improve services to citizens, and deliver substantial savings." The five areas included Financial Management, Human Resources Management, Grants Management, Case Management, and Federal Health Architecture. These initiatives were chosen, in part, because they represent core business functions common to many departments and agencies, and/or have the potential to reap significant efficiency and efficacy gains. Hence, they are strong candidates for utilizing some of the more transformative e-government practices, such as "buy once, use many," breaking down the so-called "stove pipes," and contributing to a shared infrastructure. In a 2005 report, OMB estimated that these five Lines of Business (LoB) initiatives, currently in their operational phases, would create $5 billion in savings over ten years (by 2015).

In March 2005, OMB established a task force for a sixth project, the Information Systems Security (ISS) LoB initiative. This IT security initiative is intended to address common security weaknesses faced by many agencies, and generally improve the state of federal information security. Similar to the first five LoB initiatives, the ISS LoB initiative emphasizes the development of shared service centers to carry out common tasks. For this particular LoB initiative, four areas are targeted for consolidation; security training, Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) reporting, situational awareness/incident response, and the selection, evaluation, and implementation of security products. According to President Bush's FY2009 budget proposal, shared service centers have been selected for security training and FISMA reporting and efforts are underway to migrate agencies to these centers by the second quarter of FY2010. The ISS LoB will also be used to facilitate the Trusted Internet Connection (TIC) initiative. The TIC initiative is intended to "optimize individual external connections, including Internet points of presence," by reducing the total number of external connections from more than 1,000 to approximately 50, and establish centralized gateway monitoring to detect and prevent cyber threats to federal networks.

Updated descriptions of these six initiatives and their primary objectives, as provided in Table 9-9 of President Bush's FY2009 budget proposal are:

Financial Management —to standardize and consolidate the government's financial systems and financial business processes through the establishment of shared service centers (SSC). Human Resource Management —to use government-wide, modern, cost-effective, standardized, and interoperable human resource solutions to provide common core functionality to support the strategic management of human capital through the establishment of SSCs. Grants Management —developing solutions to standardize and streamline the grants management process governmentwide. Case Management —using common data standards and shared architectures to easily and appropriately share case management information within and between federal and non-federal agencies. Federal Health Architecture —a collaborative effort to foster interoperability between healthcare systems across the nation. Information Systems Security —establishing common solutions for information systems security through shared service centers.

In February 2006, the Bush Administration announced the creation of three additional LoBs. They include IT Infrastructure Optimization, Geospatial Systems, and Budget Formulation and Execution. During FY2006, interagency task forces were established for each new LoB to assess current circumstances, and identify opportunities for consolidation to be proposed during the FY2008 budget review. In contrast to the first six Lines of Business initiatives, which emphasize the consolidation of activities at shared service centers, the most recent three Lines of Business initiatives instead focus more on the development of common practices and information standards to facilitate cross-agency interoperability and collaboration. As described in the President's FY2009 budget proposal, the primary objectives of the three new LoBs include:

Budget Formulation and Execution —enhancing Federal agency and central budget processes by identifying and implementing modern, interoperable, flexible, cost effective, and optimized solutions to support all phases of the formulation and execution of the federal budget. Geospatial —developing a coordinated approach to produce, maintain, and use geospatial data and services across the federal government to reduce long-term costs of geo-information delivery and access. Information Technology Infrastructure —identifying opportunities for IT infrastructure consolidation and optimization and developing government-wide common solutions to realize cost savings.

As OMB continues to collect and analyze information from the departments and agencies, it will be able to further develop the FEA. In turn, OMB is likely to identify additional opportunities for e-government initiatives based around the LoBs.

Oversight Issues for Congress

As the federal enterprise architecture initiative continues to evolve, Congress may decide to consider several issues related to implementation and oversight. These issues include, but are not limited to, the following:

the overall effectiveness of the federal enterprise architecture at improving federal IT management and reducing IT spending; the progress of ongoing efforts to update and enhance the five reference models, and how effective they are at identifying cross-agency redundancies; how well the enterprise architectures of the individual departments and agencies align with the federal enterprise architecture; how OMB is using the FEA to evaluate the IT business cases submitted by agencies with their yearly budget requests and how much money has been saved through this process; how the federal enterprise architecture is being used to address federal information security problems; how the federal enterprise architecture is facilitating and benefitting large-scale IT projects such as agency-level technology modernization efforts, the federal government's adoption of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), the 24 Quicksilver e-government initiatives, and government-wide information sharing; the development and performance of the next generation of collaborative e-government initiatives based on the Lines of Business; whether current funding arrangements and interagency procurement regulations will constrain the ability of the centers of excellence to make necessary upgrades over time and to compete effectively in public-private competitive sourcing situations; potential collaboration opportunities and/or lessons to be learned from state government EA effort; and the continuity and future direction of FEA efforts with the upcoming transition of presidential administrations.

For Further Reading

Chief Information Officers Council, Architecture Principles for the U.S. Government , August 2007, available at http://www.cio.gov/documents/Architecture_Principles_US_Govt_8-2007.pdf .

Chief Information Officers Council, Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework, Version 1.1, September 1999, available at https://secure.cio.noaa.gov/hpcc/docita/files/federal_enterprise_arch_framework.pdf .

Chief Information Officers Council, A Practical Guide to Federal Enterprise Architecture Version 1.0 , February 2001, available at http://www.gao.gov/bestpractices/bpeaguide.pdf .

Office of Management and Budget, Enabling Citizen-Centered Electronic Government 2005-2006 FEA PMO Action Plan , March 2005, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/documents/2005_FEA_PMO_Action_Plan_FINAL.pdf .

Office of Management and Budget, Implementing the President ' s Management Agenda for E-Government, E-Government Strategy, Simplified Delivery of Services to Citizens , April 2003, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/2003egov_strat.pdf .

Office of Management and Budget, FY07 Budget Formulation: FEA Consolidated Reference Model Document , May 2005, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/documents/CRM.PDF .

Office of Management and Budget, Federal Enterprise Architecture Program Management Office, The Business Reference Model Version 2.0 , June 2003.

Office of Management and Budget, Federal Enterprise Architecture Program Management Office, The Data Reference Model Version 2.0 , November 2005, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/documents/DRM_2_0_Final.pdf .

Office of Management and Budget, Federal Enterprise Architecture Program Management Office, EA Assessment Framework Version 2.0 , December 2005, available at http://www.cio.gov/documents/EA_Assessment_2.zip .

Office of Management and Budget, Federal Enterprise Architecture Program Management Office, FEA Practice Guidance , December 2006, available at http://www.cio.gov/documents/FEA_Practice_Guidance.pdf .

Office of Management and Budget, Federal Enterprise Architecture Program Management Office, The Performance Reference Model Version 1.0 , September 2003, available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/documents/fea-prm1.PDF .

Office of Management and Budget, Federal Enterprise Architecture Program Management Office, The Service Component Reference Model (SRM) Version 1.0 , June 2003.

Office of Management and Budget, Federal Enterprise Architecture Program Management Office, The Technical Reference Model (TRM) Version 1.1 , August 2003.