Federal Enterprise Architecture and Information Technology Management: A Brief Overview Page: 2 of 6
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CRS-2
" reduce redundancy;
" facilitate horizontal (cross-federal) and vertical (federal, state, and local)
information sharing;
" establish a direct relationship between IT and mission/program
performance to support citizen-centered, customer-focused government;
and
" maximize IT investments to better achieve mission outcomes."1
What is an Enterprise Architecture?
An enterprise architecture (EA) serves as a blueprint of the business operations of
an organization, and the information and technology needed to carry out these functions,
both currently and prospectively. As such, it is an information technology management
and planning tool. It is designed to be comprehensive and scalable, to account for future
growth needs. EA planning represents a business-driven approach to IT management that
emphasizes interoperability and information sharing. The creation of EAs long predates
the development of the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA). In the mid-1980s, John
Zachman, a business planning consultant who worked for IBM at the time, developed the
Zachman Framework, which was designed to serve as a blueprint, or an architecture, to
facilitate the integration of IT systems.2 The "enterprise," for which an architecture is
created, refers to either a "single organization or mission area that transcends more than
one organizational boundary (e.g., financial management, homeland security)."3
Since the development of the Zachman Framework, various parts of the federal
government have attempted to work with EAs. For example, the Clinger-Cohen Act,
passed in 1996, tasked agency chief information officers (CIOs) with, among other
responsibilities, "developing, maintaining, and facilitating the implementation of a sound
and integrated information technology architecture for the executive agency."4 The
Clinger-Cohen Act defined information technology architecture as:
an integrated framework for evolving or maintaining existing information technology
and acquiring new information technology to achieve the agency's strategic goals and
information resources management goals.5
In September 1999, the Federal CIO Council issued its FEA Framework, which was
described as a "conceptual model that begins to define a documented and coordinated
1 Office of Management and Budget, Expanding E-Government: Partnering for a Result-
Oriented Government, December 2004, p. 2; Office of Management and Budget, Analytical
Perspectives, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2006, February 2005, p. 178.
2 J.A. Zachman, "A Framework for Information Systems Architecture," IBM Systems Journal,
vol. 26, no. 3, 1987.
3 U.S. General Accounting Office, Information Technology: The Federal Enterprise Architecture
andAgencies' Enterprise Architectures are Still Maturing, GAO Testimony GAO-04-798T, May
19, 2004, p. 4.
4 110 STAT. 685.
s 110 STAT. 686.
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Seifert, Jeffrey W. Federal Enterprise Architecture and Information Technology Management: A Brief Overview, report, July 15, 2005; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc809208/m1/2/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.