1. introduction

The State of Arizona’s Enterprise Architecture (EA) describes a comprehensive framework for information technology (IT)[1] and business that supports the Arizona State government strategic plan. EA facilitates the application of information technology to business initiatives and objectives and subsequent change in an orderly, efficient manner by describing a direction for current and future activities, supported by underlying principles, standards, and best practices.

EA effectively supports and enhances the business of government and improves the ability to deliver responsive, cost-effective government functions, and services. Effective utilization of technology to achieve business functions and services, increasing citizen access to those services, sharing information and resources at all levels of government, and maximizing IT resources investment are major motivating factors for the development and implementation of EA. The implementation of EA presents opportunities for State agencies to interoperate together to deliver a higher level of courteous, efficient, responsive, and cost-effective service to the citizen owners and employees of State government. Individually, each State agency can independently implement EA components that are interoperable, however, e-government initiatives, economies of scale, consolidation, and cross-agency savings may best be realized not just through interoperability, but also by working together in partnership and sharing.

EA includes important business, governance, and technical components. The adjacent framework diagram, adopted from the NASCIO EA program, illustrates how the various components interact and influence each other.

A Governance Framework and foundation is critical to ensure the implementation and management of EA achieves its objectives.

The Business Architecture Framework consists of State government functions and services, aligned with statute and rule, supported by business strategies, drivers, processes, principles, best practices, and industry trends.

The Technical Architecture Framework, collectively referred to as Enterprise Wide Technical Architecture (EWTA), provides technical guidance to State agencies. That guidance is supported by principles correlated to agency business functions, recommended standards, and applicable recommended best practices. Each component of the EWTA, commonly referred to as domains, is a separate, but interrelated, architectural discipline and EA is the glue that integrates each of these technical disciplines, the business architecture, and governance into a cohesive framework.

EA applies to all agencies. The agency director, working in conjunction with the agency CIO, is responsible for ensuring the implementation of EA within the agency’s “sphere of influence,” as designated by statute or rule. The EA Target Domain Architecture documents define an overall strategy and technical framework; however, by design, the capital planning, process approach and timeframes for transition, project management, and investment control for the implementation of the target architectures are the responsibility of the agency. Implementing EA requires significant capital investments. Arizona, like most states, does not have unlimited capital to invest in implementing EA, therefore, migrating to EA within available budgets is the only viable method.

2. Enterprise Architecture Vision

Arizona’s EA outlines a strategy for e-Government. e-Government benefits citizens, business partners, other levels of government, and State employees. e-Government is defined as the use of:

Ø Internet-based technology to improve government services, reduce operational costs, enhance citizen participation, and rethink government processes; and

Ø Digital technologies to transform government business operations in order to improve effectiveness, efficiency, and service delivery.

Technology, incorporated into business and aligned with EA, has the potential to transform government by improving service delivery, reducing costs, simplifying and streamlining requirements and services, and increasing efficiency and effectiveness. AZ State Government, other state governments, the federal government, the private sector, and citizens currently embrace e-government as an essential strategy to achieve market-based, citizen- and result-oriented government services. e-Government and strategic business initiatives and programs should be designed to:

Ø Make it easy for citizens and businesses to obtain service and interact with government;

Ø Improve government efficiency and effectiveness; and

Ø Improve government’s responsiveness to citizens, businesses, political sub-divisions, and the federal government.

Utilizing these themes to align e-government and strategic business initiatives with their primary beneficiaries classifies service programs into four major strategic portfolios:

Ø Government-to-Citizen initiatives to fulfill a vision of one-stop online access to government services.

Ø Government-to-Business initiatives to reduce government burden on businesses, reduce redundant data collection and reporting, and enable digital communication with businesses.

Ø Government-to-Government initiatives to enable sharing and integration of information with all levels of government, and integrate key government operations such as disaster response.

Ø Internal Efficiency and Effectiveness initiatives utilizing technology to reduce costs and improve internal operations by adopting commercial best practices and processes.

Numerous communities of interest exist within state government that affords opportunities to develop realistic and attainable e-government solutions that support strategic initiatives. Business processes, supported by technologies that are aligned with open, pervasive industry-wide standards, interoperability, portability, and adaptability foster a common, compatible environment conducive to extending the State’s communities of interest to all levels of government and the private business sector.

3. Enterprise Architecture Purpose

The primary purpose of Information Technology (IT) is to enhance and support business and administrative requirements and processes. The purpose of Enterprise Architecture (EA) is to provide a comprehensive framework of business principles, best practices, technical standards, migration and implementation strategies, that direct the design, construction, deployment and management of information technology (IT) for the State. EA facilitates the application of IT to business initiatives and objectives and subsequent change in an orderly, efficient, and cost-effective manner by describing a direction for current and future activities, supported by underlying principles, standards, and best practices.

4. Target Enterprise Architecture

The State of Arizona’s EA is an ongoing, renewable process that describes a comprehensive, interoperable, business-driven framework for IT that aligns with, and supports the Arizona State government strategic plan. EA, based on open- and pervasive-industry-standard principles, standards, and best practices, is the strategic context that provides vision, guidance, and structure for information technology, which is an enabler of agency business processes. Arizona’s EA is a strategic marriage of business and information technology designed to achieve the State’s business initiatives and objectives, while maximizing IT investments in resources and technology to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of government services.

4.1 Architecture Framework

Arizona's initial IT Conceptual Architecture document explains the overall strategic alignment of Arizona’s EA with the State's goals and objectives, the principles behind the architecture, the EWTA domains to be addressed, the plans for addressing domains, and the technology trends[2] to be taken into consideration. It was presented to the Chief Information Officer (CIO) Council, the Information Technology Authorization Committee (ITAC), and other stakeholders in late 2001.

This document, Enterprise Architecture Framework and Strategies expands the initial document to include important governance structure, roles and responsibilities, the renewable EA lifecycle process, guidelines for implementation, the EWTA Reference Model, and the composite Target EWTA amalgamated from the individual domain documents.

Enterprise Architectures must enable business transformation, rather than stand in the way. The Business Architecture Framework underscores and emphasizes the principle that business must drive architecture. The Business Architecture Framework includes the strategies and processes, along with drivers, that support the direction, goals, and objectives of Arizona State Government, budgets, the organizational structure of government, and its business services.

Arizona’s EWTA provides the strategic technical guidance and definitions to create an interoperable, adaptive IT framework that facilitates and supports the economical and efficient development and implementation of e-government and strategic business solutions that improve government services, eliminate redundancies, and reduce costs.

The EWTA domains[3] consisting of network, security, platform, software, and data/information identify principles, standards, and best practices that provide a comprehensive view of the State’s approach to information technology deployment. Collectively, the domains characterize a target technology environment (table)[4] for information technology. The target environment portray four levels of information technology lifecycle maturity from emerging, to target or strategic, and finally to transitional and obsolete. The target environment describes the technical components of Arizona EWTA relative to the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Reference Model to furnish a common ground for analysis, discussion, and standards development. While each domain is a separate discipline, they all share and build upon the basic, fundamental principles of secure interoperability, flexibility, adaptability, scalability, and common, secure, industry-wide, open-standards-based technologies.

Arizona’s EWTA Domains
Infrastructure	Application
Platform	Data/Information
Network	Software
Security
Basic, Fundamental Principles of Arizona’s EA Business Focus and Alignment Secure Interoperability, Flexibility, Adaptability, Scalability, Portability, common, secure, pervasive, industry-wide, open-standards-based technologies

Network Architecture defines network infrastructures providing reliable and ubiquitous communication for the State's distributed information processing environment. It defines various technologies required to enable secure connections among its citizens, federal government, cities, counties, and local governments, as well as the private business sector.

Security Architecture defines technologies required to enable secure and efficient transaction of the State’s business, delivery of services, and communications among its citizens, federal government, cities, counties, and local governments, as well as the private business sector. It allows the State and individual agencies to incorporate technology security improvements for business requirements without compromising the security, integrity, and performance of the enterprise and its information resources.

Platform Architecture describes devices facilitating the reliable and pervasive availability of, access interfaces with, and processing for the State's distributed information processing environment. It defines various technologies required to deliver individual agencies’ and the State’s business application systems and services to its citizens. It allows the State and individual agencies to deploy and support effective and efficient end-user access interfaces to business application systems, as well as providing the processing capability to execute business application systems, while increasing the use of e-government solutions and maintaining traditional methods of service delivery to citizens.

Software Architecture delineates technologies (methodologies, tools, principles, etc.) facilitating the design, development, and purchase of software to automate and maintain State and agency business processes, and provides a foundation for interoperability, integration, collaboration, and communication. Arizona’s Software Architecture consists of:

1. Software Applications -- systems comprised of programming, productivity, and database software designed to automate and perform specific business functions such as payroll, accounts payable, MVD vehicle registration, etc.

2. Programming Software -- enabling technologies and products used to develop and maintain Software Applications, including programming languages (COBOL, C++, Java^TM, HTML, etc.), middleware technologies to facilitate inter-application communication and interchange of information, report writers, etc.

3. Database Software -- primarily database management systems to organize and manage data storage, facilitate access to and provide security for, and assure the integrity of the data in database storage.

4. Productivity Software -- office automation and collaborative software products and tools, such as collaborative groupware, email, calendaring and scheduling, word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, graphic applications, report writers, personal databases, etc. and productivity software components.

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