Navy is Implementing a Federated Approach to Enterprise Architecture

The author of this article from Federal Computer Week reported about the complexity of the Navy’s enterprise architecture:

Mapping the navy’s interlocking systems of systems is comparable to creating an architectural plan for a city or several cities.

Dan Slick, Navair’s deputy chief information officer for enterprise architecture concurred, “We wouldn’t think of not having a blueprint for a house. The problem is, we don’t have a city plan.”

In response, the Naval Air System Command is creating a Center of Excellence for Enterprise Architecture in order to improve their systems planning. This is being set up following an already successful test program using the innovative federated approach to enterprise architecture. Booz Allen Senior Associate, Frank Brady, described reasons for implementing a federated approach to architecture:

Just as a city plan doesn’t include every detail about every building in the city, an overarching federated architecture must be generalized. Rather than try to model the details of specific systems, a federated architecture should represent activities. Systems come and go, but activities performed by an organization remain relatively constant, he said.