4.3 NWS ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE Bobby Jones
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4.3 NWS ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE Bobby Jones*, Chief IT Architect Barry West, Chief Information Officer NOAA’s National Weather Service 1 INTRODUCTION An Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a comprehensive blueprint that aligns an organization’s business In 1996, Congress required Federal Agency Chief processes with its Information Technology (IT) Information Officers (CIO) to develop, maintain, and strategy. It is documented using multiple facilitate integrated systems architectures with the architectural models or views that show how the passage of the Clinger-Cohen Act. Additionally, current and future needs of an organization will be Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued met. The key components of the EA are: guidance that requires agency information systems investments to be consistent with Federal, Agency, • Accurate representation of the and bureau architectures. Enterprise Architectures business environment, strategy and (EA) are “blueprints” for systematically and critical success factors completely defining an organization’s current • Comprehensive documentation of (baseline) or desired (target) environment. EAs are business units and key processes essential for evolving information systems and • Views of the systems and data that developing new systems that optimize their mission support these processes value. This is accomplished in logical or business • A set of technology standards that terms (e.g., mission, business functions, information define what technologies and flows, and systems environments) and technical products are approved to be used terms (e.g., software, hardware, communications), within an organization, and includes a sequencing plan for transitioning complemented by prescriptive from the baseline environment to the target enterprise-wide guidelines on how environment. to best apply these technology standards in creating business If defined, maintained, and implemented effectively, applications. these institutional blueprints assist in optimizing the interdependencies and interrelationships among an The Federal CIO Council defines EA as “a strategic organization’s business operations and the information asset base, which defines the business underlying IT that support operations. The mission, the information necessary to perform the experience of the OMB and the General Accounting mission, the technologies necessary to perform the Office (GAO) has shown that without a complete mission, and the transitional processes for and enforced EA, federal agencies run the risk of implementing new technologies in response to the buying and building systems that are duplicative, changing mission needs.” (CIO Council, 1999) incompatible, and unnecessarily costly to maintain and interface. An Enterprise Architecture (EA) includes a baseline architecture, a target architecture, and a transition The purpose of this article is to discuss the National plan for moving from the baseline to the target. The Weather Service’s (NWS) approach to establishing target architecture components may be justified and maintaining an effective EA. It begins by using business cases developed by the Enterprise defining EA and describes the benefits of having an Architecture team. EA is documented using the EA. Next, the methodology the NWS is using to following architectural concepts: establish and maintain its EA is described. Finally, the article goes into detail describing the current Business architecture - addresses the state of the NWS’ EA. business mission, strategy, lines of business, organization structure, 2 WHAT IS ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE? business process models, business functions, etc. Information architecture - defines • Improve communication among the what information needs to be made business organizations and IT available to accomplish the mission, to organizations within the enterprise whom, and how. through a standardized vocabulary; Data architecture - establishes a • Provide architectural views that framework for maintenance, access help communicate the complexity and use of the data of the enterprise. of large systems and facilitate The data should meet the standards of management of extensive, the business unit and the other levels of complex environments; the EA. The creation of a data • Focus on the strategic use of dictionary and associated naming emerging technologies to better conventions is an important part of the manage the enterprise’s data architecture. information and consistently insert Application architecture - focuses on those technologies into the the application portfolio required to enterprise; support the business mission and • Improve consistency, accuracy, information needs of the organization. timeliness, integrity, quality, At the next level of detail, it addresses availability, access and sharing of the common business components and IT-managed information across the business services that can be enterprise; leveraged by multiple applications. • Support the CPIC processes by Technology architecture - defines the providing a tool for assessment of technology services needed to support benefits, impacts, and capital the application portfolio of the business. investment measurements and It also documents the software, supporting analyses of alternatives, hardware, and network product risks, and tradeoffs; standards. • Expedite integration of legacy, migration, and new systems; and • Enables the sharing of reusable 3 BENEFITS OF ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE components and interoperability among programs, systems and An EA provides senior management with an applications. increased understanding of the information technology (IT) as it relates to the strategic planning 4 NWS APPROACH TO ENTERPRISE and to the capital planning and investment process. ARCHITECTURE DEVELOPMENT It provides a consistent approach for defining and communicating the components needed to cost and The NWS began its EA development in 1998 with plan IT programs. It is based on the business the development of a seven volume static capture requirements derived from the priority initiatives as of the business, information, application, technology well as systems engineering design best practices. infrastructure views of the enterprise. This Such an approach will enable the NWS to 1) document attempted to show the relationships leverage IT investments and avoid unnecessary among the various architectural views, it lacked a duplication of infrastructure and major components, visual or graphical means to trace through the 2) link business processes through shared, yet various levels of data. It was also difficult to sufficiently protected information systems, and 3) maintain since it was not automatically linked. leverage disparate business processes, services Eventually, the documented EA aged and was and external activities. unusable to support capital planning activities. An effective EA will provide the NWS with the ability In 2002, the NWS researched and selected an EA to: tool and repository to graphically show the relationship among the NWS strategic plan, • Capture facts about the mission, mission, and business processes, the Enterprise functions, and business foundation Architecture, and the capital IT investment planning in an understandable manner to and decision making process. The NWS selected promote better planning and the Metis Business Modeling Application by decision making; Computas, Inc. • Architectural Segments - subsets or The NWS CIO chartered an EA working group smaller enterprises within the total which is led by the NWS’ Chief IT Architect and Federal Enterprise. comprised of representatives of each NWS Office • Standards - standards (some of and Region. Also, the team is augmented by prime which may be made mandatory), contractor Systems Plus, Inc. and subcontractor voluntary guidelines, and best SRA International, Inc. practices, all of which focus on 4.1 The Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework promoting interoperability. • Transitional Processes - processes There are a number of Enterprise Architecture that apply the changes from the frameworks available. The NWS EA is based on current architecture to the target the NIST Enterprise Architecture Framework (NIST architecture, in compliance with Special Publication 500-167) and the Federal architecture standards (such as Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF), and is various decision making or consistent with the Department of Commerce (DOC) governance procedures, budgeting, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric engineering change control, etc.). Administration (NOAA) EAs. Figure 1 depicts the • Strategic Direction - ensures that FEAF which partitions a given architecture into changes are consistent with the business, data, applications, and technology overall Federal direction. architecture layers. 4.2 NWS Roadmap to Implementation The Roadmap to complete implementation of the NWS EA consists of the following steps: • Load and validate the existing architecture into the Metis application, linking the business, information, data, application and technology layers of the architecture. • Develop a target architecture which also links the business, information, data, application and technology layers. • Perform a gap analysis to identify Figure 1. Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework the areas where NWS must invest to achieve the target architecture The eight components of the Federal Enterprise and link these needs to the NOAA Architecture are as follows: and NWS Strategic Plans and NWS IT Strategic Plan NWS IT • Architecture Drivers - external