1. Project Management COE Helen Schmitz, Chief IT Architect (Acting)
June 10, 2009

2. Agenda What Enterprise Architecture (EA) is
The components and how they are used
What we do
How to work with us
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3. What is Enterprise Architecture?
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4. What is Enterprise Architecture?
“Enterprise Architecture is the strategic plan & design for IT.”
“Enterprise Architecture at the NIH uses technology to extend the capability of the NIH to save lives. It creates a holistic vision or model of systems, processes and components to ensure that they interoperate like the different systems in a healthy body.”
EA elevator speeches created by members of the Office of the Chief IT Architect (OCITA),12/04/2006
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5. NIH Enterprise Architecture Mission and Vision
To develop a comprehensive plan for IT support at the NIH which acknowledges the need for both conforming and diverse business processes.
Vision
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Enterprise Architecture (EA) will enable efficient business processes and information access for all NIH Institutes and Centers (IC) by providing the necessary:
Common models
Frameworks
Standards
by which to build and plan:
Shared NIH enterprise systems
A secure and robust core IT infrastructure.
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6. Enterprise Architecture is Analogous to City Planning
City Council
IT Working Group (ITWG)
Zoning Board
Architecture Review Board (ARB)
Master plans
Business models and conceptual data models
Utilities
Common infrastructure
Building
Application
Building Code
Standards & Interfaces
Building Permit Process
Exception Process
L’Enfant’s Plan of Washington DC (1791)
Compare downtown DC to Arlington or Rosslyn.
An analogy we often use to convey the scope of Enterprise Architecture is city planning. This, too is a complex design.
1791 the French architect, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, was commissioned by then President George Washington to develop and design the city plan for our Nation’s Capital. L’Enfant began his work with the vision of designing a capital city existing for the primary purpose of government with residential communities and port infrastructure along the Potomac to facilitate trade. The result was a city grid and a few traffic circles to allow for easy changes of north, west, south, and east direction. As buildings were constructed, homes built, and roads established developers adhered to L’Enfant’s plan. But what would have happened if they hadn’t? Washington DC could easily look like Miami or Houston
L’Enfant’s city plan established the codes, guidelines, and land-use pattern to ensure the mission and fit of the city’s purpose. As such, the City Plan is the city’s architecture. The same concept holds true in the world of information technology (IT) and business systems. Just like the City Plan ensures the appropriate infrastructure to enable the city’s purpose (e.g., the business of government, housing residents, and port commerce), an organization’s Enterprise IT Architecture (EA) ensures the appropriate technical infrastructure to enable the organization’s mission, operations, and purpose. The EA helps organizations to streamline its technical infrastructure and make it a rational whole.
Plan can be implemented at a later time – National Cathedral began in It was completed 89 years later
Plan changes and evolves – 3 stages of the mall, canals and means of transportation, not port, buildings 13 stories tall
Provides for reuse – do not need to build from scratch - To put it in another perspective, we can then make the case that if we’re putting a house in Dayton, Ohio and not on a mountainside, we don’t have to dig our own well, install a generator or build a 12-mile driveway. There are some conveniences that come from living in a community, and those conveniences happen because we have city planners who address those issues. They make sure we have utilities and emergency services available. Water and power go to edge of property.
The corollary for IT architects is that every application doesn’t have to build everything itself either. The solution architect can focus on the specific application functional needs and as long as they adhere to the standards that were set for the benefit of all (think interoperability), then solution architecture is made easier because the enterprise architect has already fashioned the environment to provide them with common services – things like common infrastructure and NIH Login.
- Supports the mission Long range
- Over-arching Can be modified
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7. What are the Benefits of EA?
The overall NIH Enterprise Architecture offers many benefits to the enterprise. These desired benefits, along with Federal regulations and legislation, drive the development of the enterprise architecture program.
The six most important benefits include:
Links information technology (IT) to the mission of NIH
Improves interoperability and integration
Enables agility
Reduces costs
Improves security
Reduces technical risk
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8. NIH Enterprise Architecture Framework
Used to structure the EA effort and to classify the EA components:
Business Architecture
Information Architecture
Technology Architecture
Other frameworks:
FEAF, Zachman, etc.
Framework is a way of organizing all information that needs to be addressed with EA. There are different ways to display this information.
This picture shows the three main pieces of our Enterprise Architecture:
- Business Architecture belongs to the business, it shows what processes we perform and it provides a framework that allows everything IT does (directly or indirectly) to be mapped to the business processes they support.
- Information Architecture includes the information systems (applications and data warehouses or knowledge-based systems) that directly support those business processes.
- Technology Architecture really describes the infrastructure that supports those information systems.
Architecture is a process,
not a one-time event
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9. Business Architecture
Business owns this. We are documenting the processes because we are unable to find business process models.
Business Architecture Elements
Business requirements for designing future state of processes and their supporting technologies
Populated Business Relationship Grid
Functional picture and high-level process map
Data map
Implications of business strategy, business drivers and strategic initiatives on the architecture
Business Architecture Benefits
Provides a foundation for planning technical capabilities that support the business needs
Provides common language for making decisions about how processes should be implemented
Captures information about external partners
Provides a way to trace architecture requirements to business priorities
Pictures provide a way for business to see needs.
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10. Value of HPSD-12 Personal Identity Verification (PIV) Business Process Models
Provides view of end-to-end NIH Personal Identity Verification (PIV) business process
Identifies and communicates roles are responsibilities to all stakeholders
Shows integration with/linkages to existing NIH people processes
Provides functional requirements for IT PIV support system design
Establishes an agreed upon baseline from which to manage future changes
NIH HSPD-12 models used to brief Congress on the value of business process models
NIH took a holistic view of Enrollment and rather than just implement HSPD-12 PIV badge ‘printing’ NIH took a high level view and implemented processes to address the enrollment as a whole
Worked with different groups across the NIH
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11. Information Architecture
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12. Data Architecture NIH Enterprise Conceptual Data Model
Have Grants Conceptual Data model approved after meeting with over 250 people for input. It was derived from the business process modeling and documents the information that is needed to support the way we want to work in reponse to new collaborative science. it is being used by eRA, and we have had discussions with NIAID and NHLBI. If you are developing any system supporting any aspect of the grants processes, please talk to us.
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13. Technology Architecture
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14. How Standards are Developed
Domain Team process
NIH Request for Comments (NIHRFC)
Standards Sub Series Process
Requires ARB Approval
Review period = no less than 10 days
Action by Chief IT Architect
Return to author
Refer to domain team or ad hoc working group (must formulate recommendation to ARB)
Extend review period
Forward to ARB
“First calls” and “last calls” and other notification requirements are announced via Enterprise_Architecture Listserv
Same process for revisions, retirements, and obsolete documents
Conflict resolution, appeals, disputes, process failures, etc.
Best Community Practices
Does not require ARB approval
Standardize practices and results of community deliberations
Process whereby individual ICs and other stakeholders can influence consensus building and facilitate the adoption of best practices
Administrative approval authority is OCITA, assuming there are no substantive issues or gross concerns
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15. Technology Architecture Artifacts
Patterns
Design ideas that can be reused and leveraged across NIH.
Example:
Bricks
NIH standards that specify products, technologies, or protocols in use or planned, as well as those earmarked to be retired or contained.
Example:
Federated identity artifacts were developed by an NIHRFC. Additionally we hosted a town hall to spread the word and inform systems of their responsibility. The brick for federated authentication is one you might be interested in and supports an NIHRFC that states that all new web-based systems will use NIH Login.
The Enterprise Architecture Program has established 61 bricks and 50 patterns to date through the NIH EA standards process.
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16. Technology Transformations
OCITA has coordinated the implementation and planning of innovative technologies and handed them off to CIT to manage for O&M.
NIH Login
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
Business Process Management software
Federated Authentication
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17. Current Integration Service Center Web Services
Talk about what they are and how they are used…. eRA integration, NBS..
Value of current ISC web services:
Provides for interoperability between applications
Provides standards based, authenticated access to NED, Commons, nVision and other enterprise data
Provides a web service interface to NBS for the submission of requisitions, which will allow IC purchasing systems to interact directly with NBS
Provides a web service that allows applications to validate userids/passwords across different systems
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18. What does OCITA do? Defines EA Components Provides consultative advice
Standards, models, designs, plans and governance to support them
Provides a library of: Bricks/patterns, published NIHRFCs, business process models, data models, case studies, and more
Provides consultative advice
Provides advice and guidance to PMs at the concept and design stage of the project to ensure solid architectural decisions
Validates alignment to existing infrastructure
Ensures EA is available to anyone at anytime and is easy to use
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19. How can OCITA help me? What will OCITA do for me?
Communicate to project teams the EA products that will be useful to you
Provide information about similar systems or services that can be of use
Provide guidance on data and business processes that should be used
When should I contact OCITA?
If you are creating a new system or updating the current system
At the concept stage of an IT project
At the design stage of an IT project
If you have a system you are modifying which requires data from other ICs or other systems
If you are putting out an RFP/RFC
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20. Contact Information
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The NIH Enterprise Architecture Community in the NIH Portal
Subscribe to the EA LISTSERV:
Integration Service Center Website:
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