achieving information interoperability and business agility

United StatesDepartment of Justice

www.it.ojp.gov/globalwww.it.ojp.gov/global

Achieving Information Interoperability and Business Agility

The Justice Reference Architecture: A Global Project



What the JRA is• Based on Service orientation• Based on open standards• Supports implementation interoperability• Supports state and local justice agency exchanges• Partnership of government practitioners and industry

vendors (IJIS)



The Usual Business Justifications• Do it quicker.• Do it cheaper.• Do it better.

These are still valid and very important.The business cases still work, but there is more.



Motivations to Share Information• Core justice business needs (ongoing)• Terrorist attacks—September 11, 2001• Natural disasters—Hurricane Katrina (2005)• Pandemics—Avian Flu (????)• What next???

• It is hard to predict future information sharing needs, so flexibility is critical



E-Government Best Practices• Based on the real-world experience of major e-

government vendors.• The real goal is business flexibility, because our business

needs are always changing in ways that are not predictable• The paradox is that business flexibility requires adherence

to technology standards constituting an implementation architecture



Barriers to Interoperability• Information sharing reference architectures are an efficient

way to create IT standards• The main purpose of a reference architecture is to

eliminate interoperability problems by establishing comprehensive technical standards for information sharing

• There are multiple interoperability issues



Barriers to Interoperability (1)• It is very difficult to even hold a conversation about

interoperability unless there is a common vocabulary for reference architectures

• The OASIS SOA Reference Model (SOA RM)—a choice rapidly gaining traction in the vendor community

• Tested the SOA RM concepts with several other domains and expanded it as a conceptual reference architecture.

• Adopters: DoD, Adobe, Canada, etc.

United StatesDepartment of JusticeThe Moving Parts



Barriers to Interoperability (2)• Information Model Issues (GJXDM, NIEM, etc.)

– Data and document models (concepts, definitions, schema)– Document model (domain model, schema)

• Service Model Issues– Core (enterprise) or shared– Line of business– Individual agency



Barriers to Interoperability (3)• Services Issues (consistent definitions and interfaces)• Repository Issues

– Standards-based interfaces– Support for federation– Standard metadata for types of services

• Service Interaction Requirement (messaging) Issues– Consistent requirements across service interaction profiles

(security, privacy, etc.)– Consistent requirements by service



Barriers to Interoperability (4)• Service Interaction Profile (messaging) Issues

– Standards-based profiles– Compatible profiles

• Special Service (intermediary) Issues– Routing and orchestration– Transformations– Validation



Barriers to Interoperability (5)• Policy/Agreement/Contract Issues

– Consistent business rules (privacy, security, etc.)– Consistent service level agreements

• Governance Issues– Agreement on reference standards– Process for maintenance and versions

• Execution Context (implementation) Issues– Network roll-ups, simplified business rules, etc.



What is Needed?• Something complementary to both the federal, NASCIO,

and agency enterprise architectures• An implementation reference architecture for information

sharing– Partly generic standards for information sharing– Partly standards specific to a domain



A Plug-and-Play Architecture• Think about stereo connectors• The reference architecture needs to be modular

– Cleanly separated components– Substitutable components

• Rigorous technical standards are required to make this a reality



The Modular Pieces• Information Model

– Interchangeable vocabularies (GJXDM/NIEM, EDXL, HL7) and exchange schemas (IEPDs)

– Composable components to create new exchange schemas quickly and easily

• Service Interaction Profiles (messaging)– Interchangeable profiles like Web services, MQ, wireless, etc.– Composable micro-services to create new services quickly and

easily



The Generic Solutions• A Reference Model

– Provides a common language to talk about different implementation architectures (the concept of a kitchen)

• A Conceptual Reference Architecture– Provides common concepts for mapping across different

implementation architectures (a generic kitchen)• A Domain Reference Architecture

– Provides an actual set of implementation standards that enables interoperability (a specific kitchen design)



Some Specific Solutions (1)• Reference Model

– OASIS SOA Reference Model– Appropriate only for service-oriented architectures

• Conceptual Reference Architectures– Conceptual Justice Reference Architecture– Emergency Services Enterprise Framework– ??



Some Specific Solutions (2)• Some Actual Reference Architectures

– Justice Reference Architecture (incomplete)– Emergency Management: CAP, DE (incomplete)– HealthIT (incomplete)– PHIN (incomplete)– Information Sharing Environment (incomplete)– Etc.



What Is a Realistic Strategy?• We actually need cross-domain solutions for real

problems like terrorism, pandemics, hurricanes, etc., but there are NONE YET!!

• We should reuse architectural components where there are vacuums now (messaging, security, privacy).

• We should map between reference architectures where it is not practical to reuse or mature solutions already exist.



What Is Reusable Across Domains?• Information Model

– Core components like name and address (NIEM)• Service Interaction Requirements (messaging)

– Some requirements definitions• Service Interaction Profiles (messaging)

– Some profiles (at least partially)– Some specific technical solutions—Web services, MQ,

wireless (maybe)



What Needs to Behave Nicely?• Repositories (federation, shared architectural components

—data, services, etc.)• Identification Mechanisms (compatible security, access)• Security and Privacy (business rules, security controls,

role codes, and data category)



Hot off the Press• JRA specification 0.1 out soon.• First service interaction profiles out soon (web services,

JMS, ebXML, MQ Series, first wireless).• Formal efforts to coordinate with DOJ architecture

(NEISP, NIEM, etc.).• Encouraging conversations with DHS and DNI (ISE).

achieving information interoperability and business agility

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