Listen to my podcast with Tarak Modi, an industry thought leader in IT transformation and modernization technology such as enterprise architecture, SOA and cloud computing. In this podcast, we discuss the role of enterprise architecture within the federal government.
Listen to or download the 11:08 minute podcast below:
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PS: So now, can you tell me exactly why the federal government is so interested in enterprise architecture?
TM: Well, it's actually quite simply to see why; all you have to do is follow the money. For starters, just take a look at the proposed 2011 budget, which has nearly $80 billion set aside for IT related activities. So obviously, congressional policy makers are bound to be concerned about how much of this $80 billion might be wasted due to inefficiencies in the operation of the federal government. Well, that's exactly where enterprise architecture comes into play.
Enterprise architecture looks particularly appealing with its promise of reducing duplicate spending and improving cross agency collaborations. And as in the private industry, and enterprise architecture serves as the blueprint of the business operations of an agency and the IT capabilities are needed to carry out these operations. Enterprise architecture becomes even more important with the federal government's push towards more transparency with the open government directive.
I was recently reading an article in which Chris Kemp who is the CIO for NASA's Ames Research Center, said that federal agencies really need to start thinking about overall enterprise architecture because of the profound implications that open government has on federal IT. So really, the federal government has no choice but to embrace wholeheartedly the concept of enterprise architecture as a critical strategic initiative.
Now, has the federal government actually mandated the use of EA for the fed?
Actually, yes. And some of those mandates do help keep the interest in enterprise architecture alive. After all, which federal CIO would want to be in hot water by breaking a government mandate? So let's take a look at the few places that specifically reference enterprise architecture. One of the earliest specific references that I can remember can be found in the Clinger-Cohen Act which was passed in 1996 and past agencies CIO's were developing, maintaining, and facilitating the implementation of an integrated IT architecture for their respective agencies.
Another specific reference can be found in the OMB Circular A-11 that describes the process for preparing and submitting federal budgets. Circular A-11 requires federal departments and agencies to demonstrate that all of their IT investments align with federal enterprise architectures standards and guidelines in order to receive OMB approval for their budgets. Then, there is OMB Circular A-130 that requires agencies to develop a target enterprise architecture.
And last but not least, the E-Government Act, which was passed in 2002, tasks the administrator of the Office of E-Government who is now known as the CIO and is Vivek Kundra, with overseeing the development of enterprise architectures both within and across agencies. And if you think about it, the rationale behind these mandates is pretty easy to understand and actually goes back to our first question. Policymakers understands that sound IT management practices, end-to-end governance of IT investments and the alignment of IT investments that an agency's strategic goals can only really be achieved by integrating the disciplines of architecture, investment, and project implementation which is exactly what enterprise architecture's all about.
And that promises to keep it a hot item in the government. Now I've heard a lot about lines of business. Can you drill down on that a little bit?
That's a very interesting question. It all started with what's now referred to as the QuickSilver Projects. And these were e-government initiatives proposed by the Bush Administration in 2001 and consisted of a total of about 24 interagency initiatives designed to better integrate agency operations in their respective IT investments.
And surprisingly, these actually turned out to be quite successful in achieving their objectives so naturally, the OMB was very interesting in keeping a good thing going and they identified five major collaborative initiatives, which we now call lines of businesses.
The five areas are financial management, human resource management, grants management, case management, and federal health architecture. In 2005, the OMB added one more line of business called the information systems security line of business. And then in 2006, they added three more IT infrastructure optimization, geospatial systems and budget formulation and execution. So now, the question is why you would have lines of businesses in the government.
Well, lines of businesses are basically a logical grouping of initiatives, if you will, across the federal government that represent core business functions that are common across many departments and many different agencies and they have the potential to reap significant efficiency. The goal here is to breakdown the traditional inefficient stovepipes and contribute to a shared infrastructure. And these LOBs actually have the potential for significant cost savings.
For example, in a 2005 report, the OMB estimated that the initial five lines of businesses could actually create $5 billion worth of savings over ten years, so by year 2015. If you dig deeper into the LOBs, you'll notice that the first six lines of businesses emphasize on consolidation activities and the last three focus more on the development of common practices and information standards that could facilitate cross agency interoperability and collaboration. The shift actually represents a high level of maturity in the government. So first, consolidate and then standardize. The next level of maturity in my opinion is going to be the life credit option of cloud though.
Now, I've heard recently that the GSA cancelled its cloud RFQ; why did that happen?
Well, Peter, to be completely honest, that one really came out of the blue and took me by surprise as well. So yes, the GSA has indeed cancelled its blanket purchase agreement also called a BPA and its request for quotation for the Infrastructure-as-a-Service offering. And what I've heard is that they are planning to offer a new RFQ that reflects the shift in their cloud computing strategy based on the rapidly changing nature of the market. And rumors have it that the new BPA is expected to have a number of changes, the most evident of which will be in terms of security.
So for the first agreement, vendors who responded to the RFQ only had to ensure that their products met the Federal Information Security Management Act or FISMA standards for low risk systems. The new BPA, I think, will probably require these products to meet at least the moderate risk standards. Oh, and by the way, speaking of FISMA, FISMA certification and accreditation for clouds opens up a whole number of questions. And as you would suspect, there's currently an effort underway to develop a common streamlined C&A process cloud vendors. So stay tuned as members from the GSA, OMB, and the Federal CIO Council try to figure out exactly how FISMA and clouds work together.
Now, can you tell me a little bit about the Fed CIO Vivek Kundra announcing a new federal data center consolidation recently?
Oh absolutely, yes. On February 26th, Vivek Kundra outlined a plan to consolidate the approximately 1,100 data centers maintained across the government. The software is going to be lead by the Department of Homeland Security CIO Richard Spires and Treasury Department CIO Michael Duffy. The plan consists of two key activities: creating a detailed inventory of current assets and preparing consolidation plans that include a serious look at cloud computing. So agencies have four deadlines to meet by the end of August.
First, the initial assets inventories are due by April 30th. Second, the final inventories of these assets are due by July 30th. Third, the initial data consolidation plans are due by June 30th. And fourth, the final consolidation plans are due by August 30th so that they can be included in the 2010 budget. There's also going to be an on-going monitoring and reporting process to ensure that these asset inventories that are compiled are actually maintained and that progress is being reported against the consolidation plans.
Now this all sounds great but given the government's history with implementing reforms, I wouldn't break out the champagne just yet. And you know, now that I think about this initiative and context of the previous question, the OMB memo was issued by the CIO Council just before the GSA made its announcement to cancel its RFQ. So although I'm sure that there's no direct connection there, I am curious to see if the new GSA RFQ reflects some of the thinking outlined in the consolidation plan in terms of enhanced or even new requirements.
So finally to summarize, the focus of the data center consolidation initiative is to promote the use of green IT, reduce the cost of data center hardware, software and operations, increase the overall IT security posture of the government, and finally, to shift IT investments to more efficient computing platforms and technologies.
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