BEA progress gauged

The difference that business enterprise architecture (BEA) is making within the US defence department hasn`t been gauged with specific metrics. But the Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base says the results are easy to spot.

MacDill is testing the standard financial information structure (SFIS), one of a number of programs under the BEA, from which commanders finally are receiving almost real-time views of their fiscal health.

David Fisher, the defence department`s enterprise integration executive in the Business Transformation Agency, said the command is piloting SFIS standards to ensure they work within an enterprise resource planning system. SFIS is a business language that supports information and data requirements for budgeting, financial accounting, cost and performance management, and external reporting across the agency.

Agile IT systems are systems that are malleable enough to address business uncertainties. Such systems can effectively respond to internal and external stimuli in a very short period of time. Flexible IT systems imply that the IT architecture underlying them is itself flexible and lends itself to incorporating changes in a dynamic fashion. Architectural approaches such as service-oriented architecture (SOA) are transforming the way IT systems are designed by bringing in a high degree of reuse and loose coupling of applications.

IT architectures include the technology, strategies, plans, and principles that guide an organisation`s new technology investments as well as manage the existing technology investments.

The objective behind having a good IT architecture is so an organisation can operate with a high degree of flexibility while keeping the cost for the technology investments within justifiable limits.

The US Department of Defense has unveiled to congress version 4.0 of its BEA and its latest enterprise transition plan, which adds the Military Health System and a business framework that sets common business improvement areas to help tie together systems initiatives across the department, GCN reports.

Paul Brinkley, co-director of the Business Transformation Agency, said the latest architecture further refines and sets standards for the six business enterprise priorities in the department, including personnel, acquisition, material and financial visibility, as well as common supplier engagement and real property accountability.

But Brinkley warned the BEA would eventually come out yearly, instead of bi-annually, to limit the amount of new content and complications facing service and agency components.