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Case Study: The Federal SOA Community of Practice

SOAInstitute.Org’sService-Oriented Architecture Conference Series

A Brainstorm Event in Washington, DCBrand Niemann, Senior Enterprise Architecture, US EPA, and

Co-Chair of the Federal SOA CoPSeptember 12, 2007

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Abstract

• Enterprise architecture in the Federal Government is evolving from compliance-driven to value-driven with SOA leading the way. SOA itself is evolving to deal with the semantics of data and information across the distributed enterprise. Service systems (networking communities of practice) are also in play to integrate people, business, information, and information technology in an information sharing environment.

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Bio• Dr. Brand Niemann is a Senior Enterprise Architect in the Office of

the Chief Information Officer of the Environmental Protection Agency. His work on EPA and Interagency data architecture to facilitate electronic information sharing was recently recognized by Federal Computer Week in its 2006 Power Player Series Special Report.– See http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?BrandNiemann and

http://www.himotion.us/2/2006/139.html• Brand is a recognized leader in the use of communities of practice

(CoP) supported by Wiki technology and serves as Co-Chair of both the Federal Service-Oriented Architecture CoP and the Federal Semantic Interoperability CoP. He was a keynote speaker at the recent Gartner Spring EA Summit Conference on “Data and Information Architecture: Not Just for Enterprise Architects!”– See

http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/2007-06-14/SICoPGartner06142007A.ppt

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Overview

• 1. Introduction

• 2. The Evolution of Enterprise Architecture

in the Federal Government

• 3. The Medici Effect

• 4. The Federal SOA CoP

• 5. Service Systems

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1. Introduction

• In my 27 year government career, I have been asked by senior government leadership to:– Chair the CIO Council’s Web Services Working Group;– Serve on the Federal Enterprise Architecture/OMB Solution

Architects Working Group and the Data Reference Model (DRM) 1.0 Team;

– Co-Chair the CIO Council’s Semantic Interoperability Community of Practice (SICoP);

– Lead the Federal Enterprise Architecture/OMB DRM 2.0 Implementation Through Testing and Iteration Team;

– Co-Chair the Federal SOA CoP; and– Serve as the Secretariat of the CIO Council’s Best Practices

Committee.

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1. Introduction

• My Own Experience of Bring “Plucked from Obscurity” by Mark Forman:– FCW presents….The 2006 Power Players special

report:• Power is all about influence.• Some people are influential because of their positions: Give

them power and they know how to use it.• For other individuals on this list, power is not a given. They

have no direct influence on the business of government, no signet that directs or redirects the energies of government and industry. But their presence is felt nonetheless. Their voices are heard in the most heated debates and their discernment is sought for the most puzzling problems. They were not handed power, but they have earned it.

– http://www.fcw.com/specials/powerplayers/

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2. The Evolution of Enterprise Architecture in the Federal Government

SOAService

Systems

Web Services

Shared Services

The “MediciEffect”

StakeholdersInput and Outreach

Co

mm

un

itie

s o

f P

ract

ice

Management of Change

1* 2

3 4

* See next slide

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2. The Evolution of Enterprise Architecture in the Federal Government

• 1. Web Services:– Chair, CIO Council’s Web Services WG (2002-2003):

• Many pilots and meetings:– See http://web-services.gov/

• 2. Shared Services:– Co-chair, CIO Council’s Semantic Interoperability

Community of Practice (SICoP) (2003-2007):• Now the Federal SICoP. Many pilots and meetings:

– See http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SICoP

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2. The Evolution of Enterprise Architecture in the Federal Government

• 3. SOA:– Co-chair, CIO Council’s SOA CoP (2006-

2007):• Now the Federal SOA CoP. See Section 4.

• 4. Service Systems:– Secretariat, CIO Council’s Best Practices

Committee (May 2006 - July 2007):• Service Systems is now part of the Federal SOA

CoP. See Section 5.

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3. The Medici Effect

• “The Medicis were a banking family in Florence who funded creators from a wide range of disciplines. Thanks to this family and a few others like it, sculptors, scientists, poets, philosophers, financiers, painters, and architects converged on the city of Florence. There they found each other, learned from one another, and broke down barriers and cultures. Together they forged a new world based on new ideas – what became known as the Renaissance.”

• Frans Johansson, The Medici Effect, Harvard Business School Press, 2006, pages 2-3.

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3. The Medici Effect

• “When you step into an intersection of fields, disciplines, or cultures, you can combine existing concepts into a large number of extraordinary ideas.”

• “We have met teams and individuals who have searched for, and found, intersections between disciplines, cultures, concepts, and domains. Once there, they have the opportunity to innovate as never before, creating the Medici Effect.”– Frans Johansson, The Medici Effect, Harvard

Business School Press, 2006, page 186.

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3. The Medici Effect

• Communities of Practice (CoP):– What's the purpose?

• To develop members' capabilities; to build and exchange knowledge.

– Who belongs?• Members who select themselves.

– What holds it together?• Passion, commitment, and identification with the group's

expertise.

– How long does it last?• As long as there is an interest in maintaining the group.

William Snyder, Building Communities of Practice. Excerpted from the article "Communities of Practice: The Organizational Frontier" in the Harvard Business Review, January-February 2000. http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/1317.html

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3. The Medici Effect

• The President Urges Agencies to Work Together:– “Our success depends on agencies working as a

team across traditional boundaries to better serve the American people, focusing on citizens rather than individual agency needs … I thank agencies who have actively engaged in cross-agency teamwork, using E-Government to create more cost-effective and efficient ways to serve citizens, and I urge others to follow their lead.”

• http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/g-1-background.html

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4. The Federal SOA CoP

People Business

InformationTechnology

Information

SOA Architecture & InfrastructureSOA CoP Knowledgebase

SOA CoP Demo Phases 1-4SOA Tutorials

Goal 1*

Goal 2Goal 3

Goal 4

The “MediciEffect”

StakeholdersInput and Outreach

* See next slide.

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4. The Federal SOA CoP

• Federal Chief Information Officer Council Strategic Plan (FY 2007-2009) Goals:– Goal 1. A cadre of highly capable IT professionals

with the mission critical competencies needed to meet agency goals.

– Goal 2. Information securely, rapidly, and reliably delivered to our stakeholders.

– Goal 3. Interoperable IT solutions, identified and used efficiently and effectively across the Federal Government.

– Goal 4. An integrated, accessible Federal infrastructure enabling interoperability across Federal, state, tribal, and local governments, as well as partners in the commercial and academic sectors.

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4. The Federal SOA CoP

• Formed January 2006.• Produced Three Conferences, Working Demonstrations,

and a Knowledgebase• Just Announced the Fourth Conference, October 1-2,

2007, MITRE, McLean, VA.• Provide a Federal Jump Start Kit with an Open Source

Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) and Other Free Tools to Promote An Information Sharing Environment:– An ESB is the communications nerve center services in a SOA.

• http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SOACoP/Demo4/SOACoPJumpStart07312007.doc

• Others Should Take Advantage of This for Building Open Standards-Based Electronic Data Exchanges!

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4. The Federal SOA CoP

Uses an open collaborative work environment that includes a wiki, email discussion forum, message archive, shared file workspace, full text search, and portal.

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4. The Federal SOA CoP

http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SOACoPDemo4

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4. The Federal SOA CoP

See Fact Sheet:http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SOACoP/2007-10-0102/SOACoPFactSheet08012007.doc

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4. The Federal SOA CoP

• 4th SOA for E-Government Conference, October 1-2, 2007, MITRE, McLean, VA– Free and open to all:

• http://www.mitre.org/register/soa/– Features:

• Opening Keynote and SOA CoP Demonstrations Phase 4– Keynote: SOA for Dummies, Judith Hurwitz, President Hurwitz

Associates, and Senior Author of Book.• SOA CoP Demo Phase 4 Summary Reports:

– Federal Jump Start Kit and FUSE (IONA)– Model-Driven SOA at GSA and for the Records Management

Service (Model-driven.org and OMG)– SOA with XBRL (CGI Federal and Participating Companies)– Semantic SOA (SAIC SOA Facility)

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4. The Federal SOA CoP

• 4th SOA for E-Government Conference, October 1-2, 2007, MITRE, McLean, VA:– Features (continued):

• SOA Roadmap Best Practices Panel (David Linthicum)• Networking Lunch and Posters/Exhibitors• Plenary Session: What's New• Closing Keynote (David Linthicum), Special Recognitions, and

Networking• Three Concurrent Activities with Common Break and Lunch Times:

– Two Tutorials (SOA Universe and For SOA, The Future of Quality is Federated)

– Four Tracks: Semantics for SOA, Metrics for Managing SOA Development Projects, SOA For Self-Healing Scale-out Storage and Computing Fabrics, and Event-Driven Architecture and SOA

– Breakout Session (IAC SOA Committee)

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5. Service Systems

Top Down Result Bottom Up Result

eGov Multiple Initiative Silos

Data Reference Model CoP

Information Sharing Environment

FEA Compliance-driven for OMB

SOA CoP Federal Jump Start Kit (ESB)

CIO Council

Committee Silos Best Practices from Multiple CoPs

Service System

EPA Organizational Silos

Cross-organization Knowledgebase

Line of Sight

Defined innext slide.

Defined in theexamples.

Improving Citizen Services from the Bottom-Up:Open Communities, Information Sharing, and Technology

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5. Service Systems

• Definitions:– eGovernment:

• Whitehouse: Expanding E-Government is the President’s goal of utilizing technology to improve how the Federal Government serves you, citizens, businesses, and agencies alike.

– http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/

• Wikipedia: Refers to government’s use of information technology to exchange information and services with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government.

– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egovernment

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5. Service Systems

• Definitions:– Federal Enterprise Architecture:

• Whitehouse: To transform the Federal government to one that is citizen-centered, results-oriented, and market-based, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is developing the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA), a business-based framework for government-wide improvement.

– http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/a-1-fea.html• Wikipedia: The Federal Enterprise Architecture is an initiative

of the Office of Management and Budget that aims to comply with the Clinger-Cohen Act and provide a common methodology for information technology (IT) acquisition in the United States federal government. It is designed to ease sharing of information and resources across federal agencies, reduce costs, and improve citizen services.

– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Enterprise_Architecture

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5. Service Systems

• Definitions:– CIO Council:

• The Chief Information Officers Council is the principal interagency forum to assist CIOs in realizing their mandates to ensure the rapid and effective implementation of information management and information technology (IM/IT) solutions within each agency and to create a more results-oriented, efficient, and citizen-centered Federal government.

– http://www.cio.gov

• Wikipedia: None

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5. Service Systems

• Definitions:– US Environmental Protection Agency:

• EPA: The mission of the Environmental Protection Agency is to protect human health and the environment. Since 1970, EPA has been working for a cleaner, healthier environment for the American people.

– http://www.epa.gov

• Wikipedia: An agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and with safeguarding the natural environment: air, water, and land.

– http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPA

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5. Service Systems

• Data Reference Model CoP:– Now Try This – Develop the Federal Enterprise Architecture

Data Reference Model in 180 Days Using Distributed Collaboration.

– Results:• Data Reference Model WG With 30 Agencies Represented, 125

Participants, 300 Documents, and Eight Teams Supported by the Open Collaborative Work Environment (COLAB).

• Five Expedition Workshops and Public Forums on DRM with 585 People Using the Open Collaborative Work Environment (COLAB).

• DRM 2.0 Issued by OMB in December 2005:– Expanding E-Government, Improved Service Delivery for the American

People Using Information Technology, December 2005, pp. 2-3.» http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budintegration/expanding_egov_2

005.pdf

Source: Susan Turnbull, From Stovepipes to Wind-chimes: Networking among Intergovernmental Communities of Practice and Project Teams at

http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/NIH/NIH_WikiFair_20070228/Turnbull_20070228.ppt

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5. Service Systems

People Business

Products Information

enable develop enable transform

designoperate &maintain

create utilize

Industrial services Information services

Business servicesConsumer services

Non-market services

Source: Dr. Spohrer, Towards a Science of Service Systems, CIOC Best Practices Committee, March 19, 2007.

The Challenge: Service Industry Growth

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5. Service Systems

People Business

InformationTechnology

Information

Architecture & Infrastructure Committee Best Practices Committee

Executive CommitteeIT Workforce Committee

Goal 1*

Goal 2Goal 3

Goal 4

The “MediciEffect”

StakeholdersInput and Outreach

The Challenge: CIO Council Silos

* See slide 15.

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5. Service SystemsGartner: Spring EA Summit

• Recent Gartner Analysts’ Retreat to get a taxonomy.• In my experience you really need an ontology by asking everyone

the following:– What is your concept of say “enterprise architecture”?– How would you define it?– Please provide a specific example of how your definition explains the

concept.• We have done the Federal Enterprise Architecture Reference Model

Ontology to provide:– A common language and relationships between concepts.– A line-of-sight between goals and outcomes.– An executable artifact for ontology-driven applications.

• Applying Integration EA, BPM, and Service Management to slide 29 – see next slide.

– Gartner Spring EA Summit, June 13-15, 2007: Keynote Session – Anne Lapkin, The Architect’s New Imperative: Integration EA, BPM, and Service Management

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5. Service SystemsApplying Integration EA, BPM, & Service Management to the CIO Council

People Business

InformationTechnology

Information

Architecture & Infrastructure CommitteeBest Practices Committee

Executive CommitteeIT Workforce Committee

Goal 1

Goal 2Goal 3

Goal 4

The “MediciEffect”

StakeholdersInput and Outreach

Service Management Integration EABPM

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5. Service Systems

• Service Systems:– March 19, 2007, Best Practices Committee Meeting, Steps

Toward a Science of Service Systems, Jim Spohrer, et al, IBM Almaden Research Center:

• http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/BPC/2007-03-19/JSpohrer03192007.ppt

– Five service science events in the UK:• http://forums.thesrii.org/blog?blog.id=spohrer

– Invited to participate in the Service Research and Innovation Initiative (SRII):

• http://www.thesrii.org– All are welcome to become members, just sign up.

– Invited to provide a Case Study on the Federal CIO Council for SRII’s Technology Services Research & Innovation Symposium, May 30th, Santa Clara Convention Center, California:

• http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/BPC/2007-05-30/BNiemannSSRI05262007.doc

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5. Service Systems

• Service Systems (continued):– “We are all in services … more or less!”, by James Teboul: The

best primer on service innovation especially the first chapter.– Prize: Richard Normann prize for research on the service

economy & business innovation:• http://www.richardnormannprize.org.uk/

– Richard Normann's book "Reframing Business" is a must read for students of service and budding service scientists.

– Conference: Frontiers in Service Innovation conference in San Francisco, CA Oct 4-7, 2007:

• http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/ces/eBrochure.html– Education Template: SSME (Service Science, Management, and

Engineering):• http://www.ibm.com/university/ssme (for the next generation of

complex service systems innovators to thrive in a 21st century global knowledge economy)

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5. Service Systems

• EPA Cross-organization Knowledgebase Purpose:– Line of Sight:

• The indirect or direct cause and effect relationship from a specific IT investment to the processes it supports, and by extension the customers it serves and the mission-related outcomes it contributes to.

– An Information Sharing Environment for the US EPA:

• The Semantics and Line of Sight of the Organization.

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5. Service Systems

• Line of Sight Questions to Ask:– What: What are the relevant people, technology, and/or fixed

assets?• How: How do those inputs contribute to processes and activities –

and by extension the organization’s mission?

– What: What are the processes and activities? The products and services?

• How: How do these impact customers and contribute to Mission and Business results?

– Who: Who are the customers of these processes?• How: How are these customers impacted by the products and

services provided?

– What: What is the purpose and mission of the organization?• How: How do these influence Strategic Outcomes?

– What: What is the highest level Policy Priority?

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5. Service Systems

People Business

InformationTechnology

Information

Office of the Chief Information Officer Office of Research & Development

The “MediciEffect”

StakeholdersInput and Outreach

2007 Reporton theEnvironment

Enterprise Architecture

Office of the Chief Financial Officer

Strategic Plan &Performance &AccountabilityReport

Capture the Semantics of the Organization and the Line of Sight.

Office of Human Resources

Innovation &Collaboration

Integration EA Service Management BPM

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5. Service Systems

• Initial Contents of the EPA Cross-organization Knowledgebases:– Office of Human Resources:

• See Innovation and Collaboration in EPA's 2006 - 2011 Strategic Plan (below)

– Office of the Chief Financial Officer:• EPA’s Performance and Accountability Report 2006:

– http://www.epa.gov/ocfo/finstatement/2006par/• EPA's 2006 - 2011 Strategic Plan:

– http://www.epa.gov/ocfo/plan/plan.htm– Office of the Chief Information Officer:

• EPA’s Enterprise Architecture:– http://intranet.epa.gov/architec

– Office of Research & Development:• EPA's 2007 Report on the Environment: Science Report and EPA's

2007 Report on the Environment: Highlights of National Trends:– http://www.epa.gov/indicators/

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5. Service Systems

Passive Proactive Examples(see next slide for footnotes)

Data Standards Ontologies New ISO Geographic Information Ontology Project: See SOCoP (1)

Data Management/

Data Integration

Data Reuse LandView 6 & 7(2)

Recent W3C Workshop (3)

Community of Interest

Community of Practice

SICoP Special Briefing for DoD CoI (4)

Target Architecture

Service Systems

Keynote at Gartner EA Summit (5) and EPA Data Architecture for DRM 3.0 and Web 3.0 (6)

Paradigm Shift for Enterprise Data Integration and Data Warehousing

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5. Service Systems• Footnotes:

– (1) Spatial Ontology Community of Practice:• http://www.visualknowledge.com/wiki/socop

– (2) LandView 6 and 7 (in process):• http://landview.census.gov

– (3) June 18-19, 2007, Toward More Transparent Government Workshop on eGovernment and the Web, United States National Academy of Sciences, Washington DC, USA:

• http://www.w3.org/2007/06/eGov-dc/agenda.html– (4) SICoP Special Briefing for DoD CoI:

• http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?SICoPSpecialBriefing_2007_08_09– (5) June 14, 2007, Keynote at Gartner EA Summit, Data and

Information Architecture: Not Just for Enterprise Architects!:• http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/2007-06-14/

SICoPGartner06142007A.ppt– (6) July 30, 2007, EPA Data Architecture for the Data Reference Model: Build

to Exchange, Share, and Reuse:• http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/EPADRM3.0/

SICoPEPADRM307242007.ppt

Paradigm Shift for Enterprise Data Integration and Data Warehousing

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5. Service Systems

Source: Expanding E-Government, Improved Service Delivery for the American People Using Information Technology, December 2005, pp. 2-3.http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budintegration/expanding_egov_2005.pdfwith annotations by the author.

DRM 1.0 SICoP

Ontologies

All Three

DRM 3.0 Unify

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5. Service Systems

http://colab.cim3.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?EPADataArchitectureforDRM3Web3

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5. Service Systems

• A New Enterprise Data Management Strategy Based on:– The premise of reusing the data and information

rather than changing the data systems themselves:• Putting the business and technical rules, logic, etc. into the

data itself using markup languages.– The concepts and standards of the Semantic Web:

• Also called the Data Web or Web 3.0.– The most important tenets of the reuse are:

• Bring the data and the metadata back together.• Bring the structured and unstructured data and information

back together.• Bring the data and information description and context back

together.http://colab.cim3.net/file/work/SICoP/EPADRM3.0/BNiemann08152007.doc forMetatopia 2007: http://www.wilshireconferences.com/metatopia/agenda.html