EA moves from foundation to adoption

Federal agencies have indicated significant progress in reaching the Office of Management and Budget`s adoption stage as they implement its 2004 Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) roadmap, according to an independent, commissioned survey of federal decision-makers, says Cisco.

Funding and managing security during FEA transition top the list of decision-maker concerns, with network security and continuity of operations as the major business drivers.

With agencies wanting more centralised frameworks for security services and further embedding of security in the enterprise, the survey results released by Cisco Systems indicate that enterprise architecture may be viewed as a way to drive security as an enterprise capability.

Integration is key to almost all enterprise system development, and" I AM" (Information Around Modules) has been replaced with "We ARE" (Wider Enterprise fuelled by Abstracted Reusability Entity value chains), SDA Asia says.

However, enterprise requires an enormous effort to integrate the value chain verticals across the globe. This includes the enterprise semantic models that address the business dynamics and orchestrate business processes.

Enterprise architecture frameworks and enterprise classification frameworks can play a vital role in differentiating these increasingly blurred technology stack choices and provide a guided roadmap toward convergence in various aspects.

Agencies` enterprise architectures are good enough to support their mission needs for the time being, but may not be adequate for the long-term, reports GCN.

In a survey of 155 federal IT and business executives, 61% said their modernisation blueprints "are not optimal for growth" and 7% said their EA is not optimal for their agency`s current mission.

Meanwhile, 33% said the plans are good enough for now and the future.