Architecting an On Demand Government Enterprise using the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA)

Andras Szakal
Chief Architect, Federal Software Sales Division
IBM

The dynamics that drive markets and governments are changing, and that requires a new way of thinking about business and government processes and the information technology infrastructure that supports them. Organizations that embrace these concepts and technologies can be referred to as an On Demand Enterprise. An On Demand Enterprise is one whose business processes are integrated end-to-end across the organization and with key partners, suppliers, and constituents and is able to respond with agility and speed to customer demand, market opportunity, or external threat.

The successful implementation toward an On Demand Enterprise will be predicated on the use of a standardized enterprise architectural framework. The Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) is the official IT enterprise framework of the U.S. Federal Government. The FEA provides a process through which federal agencies align their missions and core business process within an efficient information technology environment. The focus of the FEA is limited to the common federal architecture issues, which benefit Federal organizations and the public. The FEA provides an ontology and common grammar for describing the architectural components across federal government agencies. The FEA provides a useful architectural framework for describing, designing and evolving to an On Demand Government Enterprise.

As On Demand technologies evolve, enterprise architects must be an advocate for evolving and transforming an existing enterprise infrastructure into a successful OD environment as an iterative process. This presentation will outline a process for evolving government (and commercial) IT departments and business processes into an On Demand Enterprise using the FEA as an architectural framework.