Recommended Approach for the FEA Data Reference Model (DRM)

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Recommended Approach for the FEA Data Reference
Model (DRM)

• Amit K. Maitra
• Consultant, Washington, DC
• October 19, 2005

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Speakers Bio

• Speakers BioAmit K. Maitra is an industry
  expert on the Federal Enterprise Data
  Architecture Framework. Mr. Maitra has over 20
  years of experience in program planning,
  evaluation, and integration of Federal Enterprise
  Architectures under the Defense Information
  Systems Agency (DISA) Corporate Management
  Information (CIM) initiative Department of State
  Enterprise Data Architecture initiative and
  Customs Partnership (eCP) program of the Bureau
  of Customs and Border Protection (CBP),
  Department of Homeland Security (DHS). As Chief
  Enterprise Data Architect for eCP, Mr. Maitra was
  directly responsible for providing Enterprise
  Data Architecture support to the Bureau of
  Customs and Border Protection, with focus on
  identification, evaluation, preparation, and
  planning of CBP-DHS Strategic Interoperability
  and Business Line Implementation. Enterprise
  Architecture Programs. 
• Additionally, he was actively involved with the
  Industry Advisory Council Enterprise Architecture
  Special Interest Group in providing industry best
  practices recommendations to the Office of
  Management and Budget Federal
• Information sharing, according to the DRM, can be
  enabled through the common categorization and
  structure of data. Contrary to the prevailing
  notion, however, this presentation argues that a
  better DRM solution lies in a Model Driven
  Architecture (MDA) framework that
•  Mr. Maitra is a Senior Enterprise Data Architect
  for Federal programs his current interests
  include the preparation, identification and
  planning of wireless components for a FEAF-based
  enterprise architecture. Incorporating the
  mission requirements of the customer, a large
  Federal agency, these components are customized
  to reflect the agency's FEAF-compliant wireless
  and wireless geospatial needs and will facilitate
  horizontal and vertical integration across and
  beyond the agency's boundaries.

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CONTEXT

• Global Environment
• Changing Technologies
• Revolutionary Moments The Mandate
• The Current Situation
• The Solution The DRM
• The Architecture
• The Structure
• The Tools
• Federated Data Management Approach
• The Result
• Paradigm Shift
• Concern
• Leadership at DoD
• Decisions Net Centric Data Strategy Community
  of Interest
• Processes NCDS COI

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Underlying Theme

• Fully integrated information systems for a shared
  data environment

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Focus

• Information, Access, Authorization, Emerging
  Technologies
• Data Accessibility, Commonality, and
  Compatibility Design
• Data Dictionary
• Data Quality
• Security Privacy Assurance

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Global Environment

• Characteristics
• Geographically distributed, dissimilar elements
  of varying capabilities and responsibilities
• Data distributed to and redistributed among
  system facilities, interconnected by both private
  and shared public communications networks

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Changing Technologies
A Gentle Transition From XML to Resource
Description Framework (RDF) The purpose of RDF is
to give a standard way of specifying data about
something Advantage of using RDF If widely
used, RDF will help make XML more
interoperable Promotes the use of standardized
vocabularies ... standardized types (classes) and
standardized properties Provides a
structured approach to designing XML documents
The RDF format is a regular, recurring
pattern Quickly identifies weaknesses and
inconsistencies of non-RDF-compliant XML designs
Helps us better understand our
data! Positions data for the Semantic Web!
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Changing Technologies Web Ontology Language (OWL)
RDF has limited expressive capability -- Mostly
limited to taxonomic descriptions The things we
model have complex relationships so we need to
capture many different facets, or restrictions on
class and property descriptions
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Revolutionary Moments The Mandate
Our success depends on agencies working as a
team across traditional boundaries to serve the
American people, focusing on citizens rather than
individual agency needs. President George
W. Bush
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The Current Situation The Federal Government is
less than efficient in performing its business
and meeting customer needs due to data sharing
inefficiencies caused by stove-piped data
boundaries
Primary Issues and Information Sharing Barriers
Stove-Piped Data Boundaries As Is State

• No common framework or methodology to describe
  the data and information that supports the
  processes, activities, and functions of the
  business
• No definition of the handshake or partnering
  aspects of information exchange
• Existing systems offer diffused content that is
  difficult to manage, coordinate, and evolve
• Information is inconsistent and/or classified
  inappropriately
• Without a common reference, data is easier to
  duplicate than integrate
• No common method to share data with external
  partners
• Limited insight into the data needs of agencies
  outside the immediate domain
• Data and Information context is rarely defined
• Stove piped boundaries, no central registry
• Lack of funding and incentive to share
• Data sensitivity and security of data
• New laws/issues result in continuous adding of
  databases that can not share data

Illustrative
INDUSTRY
HHS
DHS
Have Created
CDC
TSA
FDA
INS
USDA
ENERGY
DOI
LABOR
Denotes data and information sets within agencies.
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The Solution The Data Reference Model (DRM)
The DRM provides

• A framework to enable horizontal and vertical
  information sharing that is independent of
  agencies and supporting systems
• A framework to enable agencies to build and
  integrate systems that leverage data from within
  or outside the agency domain
• A framework that facilitates opportunities for
  sharing with citizens, external partners and
  stakeholders

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MODEL DRIVEN ARCHITECTURE
The Architecture
A virtual representation of all physical data
sources - Applications are to be decoupled from
data sources - Details of data storage and
retrieval are to be abstracted - Are to be easily
extended to new information sources
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The Structure
META OBJECT FACILITY
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The Tools
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Federated Data Management Approach
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The Result Interagency Information Federation
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Paradigm Shift

• MDA is fundamental change
• MDA rests on MOF
• It is the best architecture for integration
• It shifts data architecture from Entity
  Relationship Diagramming (ERD) to a Business
  Context (Interoperability/Information Sharing)

Business Performance Driven Approach
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Concerns

• To what extent the government agencies,
  Customers, Partners are willing to participate
  along the Lines of Business (LOB), thereby
  underscoring the importance of working toward a
  common goal Collective Action IAW National
  Security/National Interests criteria
• These need to be tested and validated against
  uniquely tailored performance indicators Inputs,
  Outputs, and Outcomes

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Leadership at DoD

• Decisions
• Processes

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Decisions
Net-Centric Data Strategy Communities of
Interest (COI)
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Processes The DoD Net-Centric Data Strategy
aims at breaking down barriers to information
sharing
B A R R I E R B A R R I E R B A R R I
E R B A R R I E R
What data exists? How do I access the
data? How do I know this data is what I
need? How can I tell someone what data I need?
How do I share my data with others? How do
I describe my data so others can understand
it?
User knows data exists and can access it but may
not know how to make
use of it due to lack of
under- standing of what
data represents
User is unaware this data exists
User knows this data existsbut cannot access it
because of
organizational and/or
technical barriers
?
Organization A
Organization B
Organization C
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The Net-Centric Data Strategy is a key enabler of
the Departments transformation...

• The Strategy (signed May 9, 2003) provides the
  foundation for managing the Departments data in
  a net-centric environment, including
• Ensuring data are visible, accessible, and
  understandable when needed and where needed to
  accelerate decision making
• Tagging of all data (intelligence,
  non-intelligence, raw, and processed) with
  metadata to enable discovery by known and
  unanticipated users in the Enterprise
• Posting of all data to shared spaces for users to
  access except when limited by security, policy,
  or regulations
• Organizing around Communities of Interest (COIs)
  that are supported by Warfighting, Business,
  Enterprise Information Environment, and
  Intelligence Mission Areas and their respective
  Domains.

The Strategy describes key goals to achieving
net-centric data management
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COIs are a key implementer of data strategy
goals
Key COI Actions

• Tag data assets with COI-defined metadata that
  enables it to be searched (visible)
• Organize data assets using taxonomies developed
  by experts within the COI
• Define the structure and business rules for
  operating with data and information (e.g. define
  data models, schema, interfaces)
• Identify, define, specify, model, and expose data
  assets to be reused by the Enterprise as services