Bush Administration Unveils Next Phase Of Federal Enterprise Architecture

"The FEA is about driving government transformation, and giving federal agencies the management tool they need to focus technology on the citizen and on the right business results," Norm Lorentz, Office of Management and Budget's chief technology officer, said Thursday in a statement announcing the new version of the federal enterprise architecture.

The reference models create a comprehensive governmentwide framework to guide agency IT investment activities; identify opportunities to collaborate on and consolidate initiatives; and integrate government activities. "These models will enable better alignment of IT and the business of government," Mark Forman, OMB administrator for E-government and IT, said in a statement. "OMB and agency officials will use them to improve agency performance, increase intergovernmental collaboration, and reduce costs for the taxpayer, furthering the goals of the president's management agenda and making government services more citizen-centered."

The business-reference model describes the federal government's operations independent of the agencies that perform them and serves as the foundation for the federal enterprise architecture. The service-component reference model is a business-driven, functional framework that classifies service components according to how they support agencies' business and performance objectives. This model will provide the foundation for the reuse of applications, application capabilities, components, and business services. The technical reference model provides the framework to identify the standards and technologies that support and enable the delivery of service components and capabilities.

When released, the performance reference model will help agencies identify more vigorous performance metrics and pinpoint improvement opportunities. The data and information-reference model will provide a framework to describe the data that sustain federal functions and encourage interoperability and information sharing across government. OMB also is developing a Web-based tool to let agencies view the federal enterprise architecture and integrate the reference models into their planning processes.

More information about the federal enterprise architecture can be obtained at http://www.feapmo.gov.

This story courtesy of InformationWeek">InformationWeek.