DON Enterprise Architecture Supports the DON IM/IT/Cyberspace Campaign Plan
By Victor Ecarma - Published, October 27, 2011
In May 2011, the Department of the Navy Chief Information Officer released the DON Information Management/Information Technology/Cyberspace Campaign Plan for Fiscal Years 2011-2013. As stated in the campaign plan, "Fiscal realities in the Defense community today and in the anticipated future will not support our continued development and delivery of Information Management (IM), Information Technology (IT) and Information Resources Management (IRM) capabilities as we have in the past." As a result, there are many DON IM/IT/cyberspace efficiency initiatives underway, and the DON enterprise architecture (EA) supports these initiatives.
The DON EA is made up of products that are aligned with the department's business goals and objectives. DON EA compliance became mandatory for all DON IT, including national security systems programs, in October 2009. Through the DON EA compliance, waiver request and review process, the department can determine how well DON strategy and policies are executed by individual DON programs. The most recent release of the DON EA, Version 3.0, contains two products that are directly related to the DON IM/IT/cyberspace efficiency initiative. These two products are focused on assisting with implementing the DON's plans for implementing enterprise software licenses/enterprise software agreements (ESL/ESA) and data center consolidation.
The new DON EA enterprise software licenses/enterprise software agreements product requires all DON programs to make use of the growing list of departmentwide enterprise licenses and agreements when procuring commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software and hardware. This will allow DON programs, and the department as a whole, to get the best prices possible for COTS software and hardware. In addition, the existing DON EA “COTS Software Fielding” product will support identification of the COTS software applications most frequently used across the department and, therefore, would be good candidates for new enterprise software licenses and agreements.
Another new DON EA v3.0 requirement, the data center consolidation product, ensures DON programs use available data storage capacity at established department enterprise and regional data centers before procuring additional data storage capacity. To this end, the DON CIO issued data center consolidation guidance July 20 establishing a moratorium on the purchase of additional data center capacity.
The memo, "Department of the Navy Data Center Consolidation Policy Guidance," halts all DON investment (to include individual program of record resources) in increased data storage capacity without first determining that existing DON data center capacity is insufficient to meet the storage requirements, and determining it is not more cost effective to expand capacity in an existing DON-owned, Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, Navy Marine Corps Intranet, or Marine Corps enterprise or regional data center.
As an alternative, qualifying Defense Department or commercial facilities can be used upon completion and approval of a valid business case analysis using the DON standard BCA template. As part of the DON EA compliance assertion process, DON program managers will be asked to verify whether their programs are compliant with this requirement.
As DON IM/IT/cyberspace efficiency efforts continue, the DON EA compliance assessment and review process will continue to be a transparent mechanism for ensuring proper program alignment with the strategies, plans and policies associated with achieving greater departmentwide IM/IT/cyberspace efficiencies.
All authoritative DON EA content, policy, procedures and guidance can be accessed at http://go.usa.gov/1bf.
Victor Ecarma provides support to the Department of the Navy enterprise architecture team. Fumie Wingo is the DON enterprise architecture lead.