0 United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Environmental Information Enterprise Architecture Program Success Stories February 2008

1 Table of Contents EPA’s EA program is pleased to provide further insight into the numerous mission- oriented successes and cost savings that were achieved by the Agency in 2007  Purpose  Mission-Oriented Successes Geospatial Segment Air Segment EPA Portal Tribal Portal  Cost Savings of Enterprise Tools and IAM

2 Purpose The following success stories demonstrate how the EA program has generated measurable and lasting results that benefit the Agency  Demonstrates how EPA’s EA strategy has produced results: Segment success Reuse of services Cost savings/cost avoidance Performance improvements  Highlights success stories attributable to the EA program that: Demonstrate segment progress Have resulted in cost savings/avoidance Demonstrate an impact on the Agency budget

3 Mission-Oriented Success Geospatial Segment EPA’s National Geospatial Program: An Enterprise Geospatial Framework Supporting Inter-Agency and Intra-Agency Business Challenge  EPA personnel and external partners need an easy and efficient mechanism for accessing, exchanging, and reusing various types of geospatial resources. Because geospatial information is a key component for many EPA business processes, improving the quality of these resources and increasing the access to them resources results in large benefits across the Agency. ApproachResults  The GeoData Gateway (GDG) was implemented, providing access to hundreds of geospatial assets across EPA programs  The Geo Community at the EPA Portal was launched, providing a single access point for geospatial applications  The EPA Metadata Editor (EME) was released and is used by hundreds of EPA, federal and public entities  The Procedures for Geospatial Metadata Management were adopted, establishing responsibilities for geospatial data stewardship across EPA.  The GDG was integrated with the Agency's Identity Access Management System, providing seamless access to EPA’s geospatial resources  The portfolio of agency-wide enterprise licenses for geospatial commercial data and software has doubled, saving millions of dollars and providing new capabilities through new technologies.  Improved access to data through the GDG reduces the time required to search for EPA information by more than half, resulting in an estimated savings of close to $200K annually.  Use of the GDG for managing metadata and contributing to intra- Agency sharing efforts streamlines metadata management and improves the quality of information made available to external partners. This saves Agency personnel time and money, and improves the resources available to partners.  Use of the EME greatly reduces the time needed to develop standard geospatial metadata, saving the Agency hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. Use of the EME outside of EPA extends those savings across external groups.  Use of enterprise licenses for software has already saved the Agency close to $2M.  Use of new enterprise licenses for application development saves the Agency close to $30K per application developed. With over 40 geospatial applications hosted in NCC, potential cost-savings are tremendous.

4 Mission-Oriented Success Geospatial Segment Example Cost-Savings Achieved to Date: EPA’s ESRI Enterprise License Savings  Initial Savings Estimated at ~$1.85 million  Capital Investment Savings: ~$1.5-$1.6 million  Contractual Savings (associated with annual maintenance): ~$250K  Annual Training Savings: ~$50K* What does it provide  EPA’s primary Geospatial Information Systems (GIS) software (desktop and server)  Additional extensions and services depending on user needs Additional user benefits  Improved access to software: 150% increase in use since the beginning of the license agreement  Reduction in management of licensing and contracts  As additional offices take advantage of the software (e.g., OAR), the savings increase: OAR was able to leverage ESRI software, and services in building their new geospatial data warehouse  Access to information for emergencies: During Katrina, EPA was provided with numerous free data services. Actual cost savings and ROI summary from use of EPA’s ESRI Enterprise License EPA’s National Geospatial Program: An outline of benefits The Results: The National Geospatial Program delivers far more than just financial returns. Providing improved access to resources, streamlining metadata management processes, and improving the quality of information made available across the Agency and to external partners dramatically improves the ability for EPA personnel and partners to do their business. Because the majority of EPA business is associated with a place, improving the ability to evaluate information based on location will help the Agency meet its programmatic goals and enables managers to view environmental problems in ways and timeframes and at costs not previously possible. All of the National Geospatial Program products developed in FY 2007 are currently available for use by all to all EPA segments.

5 Mission-Oriented Success AIRNow AIRNow Success: Using an Air Program’s Business Solution to Protect Public Health Challenge  Air quality is a year-round problem with economic and health impacts. In order to protect the American public from air pollution, EPA must overcome two major challenges. One challenge is to effectively communicate timely, meaningful, and relevant environmental information about hazardous air pollutants to sensitive populations so they can make better choices about daily life activities that can reduce their exposure to air pollutants. The other challenge is to effectively leverage air monitoring data from multiple air agency partners in real-time and thus, expedite local decisions by environmental and health protection officials. ApproachResults  In 1997, EPA’s Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards spearheaded the Environmental Monitoring for Public Access and Community Tracking Initiative, a multi-partnership effort, to collect, quality assure, and transfer real-time air quality forecasts to the public.  In 1998, the “AIRNOW” Website was created to house the Air Quality Index (AQI) tool.  AQI provides the public with simple information on the level of ozone and particle air pollution locally and what this means to their health.  Tie forecasts from AQI to geospatial-weather mapping tools to drive the demand for this information. Also, it gets this environmental-mapping information to the public in real time via other media and Internet partnering outlets.  Through AIRNow, EPA, NOAA, USDA, NASA, National Park Service, news media, tribal, state, and local agencies work together to report air pollution conditions. Better Government-to-Government Partnerships  AIRNow provides a centralized location to access information about current, historic, and forecasted levels of air pollution.  AIRNow strengthens public health and environmental protection by enabling coordinated approaches at the local and regional level to lessen the impacts from air pollution.  One common forecasting tool provides for easy comparison of environmental data, expedites decisions, and allows for the delivery of optimized approaches to public health protection. Better Government-to-Citizen Services  AIRNow enables the general public to assess and compare current, historic, and forecasted air pollution information.  AIRNow provides customized environmental-health outreach information for various sensitive population groups and health care professionals.  AIRNow also delivers alerts on pollution-health hazards.  Visit AIRNow at

6 Mission-Oriented Success AIRNow Selected Performance Metrics and Results Metric Participants14-27 States38 States, 5 Canadian Provinces 44 States, 6 Canadian Provinces 50 States, 10 Canadian Provinces, parts of Mexico Agencies306279Over 120 Forecast cities Over 300 cities Turn-around time2.5 hours2 hours10-45 minutes<30 minutes Update frequency4 times/day7 times/dayHourly (8 am to 10 pm) Some areas 24 hours Daily, every hour AIRNow Success: Using an Air Program’s Business Solution to Protect Public Health

7 Mission-Oriented Success AIRNow Results Leveraging of EA and Enterprise Tools  AIRNow leverages EPA’s Central Data Exchange (CDX) and the National Environmental Information Exchange Network (Exchange Network) to facilitate air quality data exchanges, to enable the analysis of air monitoring-field data, and to share daily forecasts with the Exchange Network sponsors.  AIRNow accommodates through the Exchange Network real- time exchanges of data and information enabling local agencies to issue public health-advisories about protective actions one can take.  AIRNow provides environmental-health alerts via the EnviroFlash Service from one central Node in the Exchange Network reaching over 1.5 million people via , Internet, text messaging, and TV.  AIRNow’s business solution tool and public information sharing model have been replicated by numerous countries.  AIRNow’s Web site provided the public with easy access to national air quality information.  AIRNow offers daily air quality forecasts as well as real-time air quality conditions for over 300 cities across the US, and provides links to more detailed State and local air quality information. AIRNow Success: Using an Air Program’s Business Solution to Protect Public Health

8 Mission-Oriented Success AIRNow Results Leveraging of Other Federal Partners’ Enterprise Tools  AIRNow exchanges air pollution data from the Network Exchange sponsors with NASA and NOAA in order to provide refined and extended forecasts complemented real-time data from NASA satellites and NOAA weather monitoring stations.  AIRNow leverages air pollution monitoring data collected from NPS in order to develop forecasts that cover most of the USA and sharing of remote camera feeds.  Since 2003, EPA and NOAA have been collaborating on improvements to the capabilities of the air pollution-weather forecasting tools and on making them operational. For example, refining the quality of the current forecasting tool in order to make the predictions more accurate with observations made in the field. Cost Savings & Avoidance  Automation of the real-time delivery of data rather than the old manual approach reduces transaction costs and has resulted in quicker turn-around times, e.g. from 2.5 hours in to less than 30 minutes today.  Although cost savings have not yet been quantified, BIA tools for real-time quality assurance allows for faster corrections on erroneous data that saves time down the road.  Although costs have not yet quantified, several studies have reported health benefits from reduced hospital visits in Los Angeles on poor air quality days when forecasts are available. AIRNow Success: Using an Air Program’s Business Solution to Protect Public Health

9 Mission-Oriented Success AIRNow One Customer’s FeedbackResults “I want to let you know how wonderful this service is. My husband has stage IV lung/brain cancer. It never occurred to me that the air quality could be so dangerous in the winter (I only knew about the cold and dry). Because of your s we were able to plan his appointments and time outside around those bad days. Now, the other interesting part of this is that I have asthma and, truthfully, I haven't been taking very good care of myself. I haven't been taking my meds like I should. During that alert time, I should have increased my inhalers too but forgot. By this past Sunday, I was in a little trouble with my breathing--I actually thought I was coming down with a cold but then I realized your messages were meant for me also. I upped my meds (like I'm supposed to when I'm in trouble) and today I'm much better. I know this is an experimental program--I've got to tell you it worked for me. From now on I'm going to respond to your warnings, not only for my husband but for me too. Thanks for providing this service.” -- Kathy Barney Source: EPA AirNow Program: Changing Behaviors and Protecting Public Health, presented at the 2007 OEI Environmental Information Symposium. AIRNow Success: Using an Air Program’s Business Solution to Protect Public Health

10 Mission-Oriented Success EPA Portal EPA Portal Success: Common Portal Security Plan Challenge  Minimize or eliminate the need to re-create similar or identical, individual security plans for each new portal community. ApproachResults  Program offices do not need to produce independent security plans, 508 compliance reviews, and other lifecycle artifacts when they use the Portal in its standard configuration. They rely on the overall Portal security plan as their de- facto plan.  Programs and portal communities do not need to develop separate security plans or conduct separate section 508 compliance reviews.  A complete system security plan with all required appendices typically costs a minimum of $35K. Since all portal communities use the EPA Portal security plan instead of developing their own individual plans, this development cost is avoided when implementing new communities.  Multiplying this cost by fifteen existing and under development portal communities; this works out to a security plan cost avoidance of $35K X 15 portal communities = $525K approximate minimum cost avoidance.

11 Mission-Oriented Success EPA Portal EPA Portal Success: Portal Code Reuse Benefits Challenge  Reduce development costs of new portal-based applications. ApproachResults  Re-use common portal service components, development standards and development methodology available as a result of a centrally implemented Agency portal environment and toolset.  EPA estimates a savings of 29% in the number of lines of code that need to be produced in EPA applications due to the use of the Portal as a framework for user interface development.  This code reuse represents a 15% reduction in the development cost across 15 existing and under-development portal communities, assuming 50% of the implementation time is spent in code development.

12 Mission-Oriented Success Tribal Portal Tribal Portal Success: One point access to environmental programs at EPA and other federal agencies emphasizing healthy communities and environmental protection of Indian country Challenge  The major challenge for American Indian Tribal governments and communities is missing critical and time sensitive information regarding the type of assistance and services that multiple federal environmental programs may be able to provide them. Tracking all federal programs can be a costly, labor and a process intensive endeavor since you need to navigate too many. And most important, American Indian Tribal governments and communities need timely access to environmental related information in order to compete for or secure federal resources that can strengthen public health and environmental protection. ApproachResults  In July 2007, EPA launched the first-of-its-kind portal website tailored for American Indian Tribal govern- ments and communities, its supporters, and the general public. EPA refers to this mission enabling tool as the American Indian Tribal Portal (AITP). The AITP provides environmental information and data through a central web-based access point. Furthermore, it provides a link to a comprehensive list of federal agencies and departments dealing with environmental Tribal policy. Better Government-to-Government Partnerships  A centralized location to access relevant EPA environmental information and links to other federal environmental programs and resources.  Strengthen public health and environmental protection in Indian country by helping tribes administer their own environmental programs. Better Government-to-Citizen Services  Access to “Window to My Environment” – a powerful, EPA web- based tool which provides access to a wide range of federal, state, tribal, and local environmental conditions and features. This application is provided by EPA in partnership with federal, state, and local governments and others.  Enables tribal public involvement and transparency of our core regulatory and compliance enforcement business practices.  Links to Tribal programs sponsored by various EPA media programs and by other federal partners.  Visit AITP at

13 Mission-Oriented Success Identity and Access Management Re-Use Enterprise Tool Story: IAM User Management Challenge  According to research from external firms, the implementation of a central IAM solution saves systems up to 50% in user support costs  EPA has avoided the creation of approximately 10,000 system-specific user identities by migrating multiple login ids into one single id. While EPA does not have an accurate cost for the average cost of a single identity on a single system, Gartner estimates the average cost for all organizations to be between $80 - $100 per identity per year. ApproachResults  Implement a common Agency solution for Identity and Access Management to reduce the number of unique user accounts that must be managed.  Anticipated annual cost savings with 10,000 users X $80 per user = $800K per year cost savings

14 Mission-Oriented Success Identity and Access Management Re-Use Enterprise Tool Success Story: Identify and Access Management (IAM) Re-Use

15 Closing EPA plans to build on the successes realized in 2007 and ensure progress in 2008  EPA will continue to: Make progress toward further segment successes Identify and leverage greater reuse of services Seek additional cost savings/cost avoidance opportunities