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'Enterprise architecture' integrates AF systems

by Tech. Sgt. Scott Elliott Air Force Print News

10/02/02 - WASHINGTON -- Transformation, the Air Force chief of staff said, is the key to the service's future.

To that end, Gen. John P. Jumper said the service needs to stop concentrating on individual systems. Rather, the Air Force's air, space and ground platforms must work together by sharing information to accomplish the mission.

"Enterprise architecture" is the Air Force's blueprint process to bring together its individual systems to form this integrated capability. Just as an architect designs a building to ensure all its parts work together and make sense, enterprise architecture will use models and processes to capture the complex interrelationships between the Air Force's many systems and platforms.

It also will ensure that this integrated view is linked to the Air Force's requirements, planning, programming and budgeting, as well as its acquisition processes.

"Enterprise architecture lets us effectively deal with the enormous complexity of integrating the large number of different components that contribute to performing Air Force missions," said John Gilligan, Air Force chief information officer.

Essentially, he said, the goal of the Air Force's architecture efforts is to point the way to the future for the Air Force in terms of innovation, and, more importantly, in terms of simplicity.

"The goal of Air Force enterprise architecture is to provide the roadmap for innovation and to function as a blueprint for improving the overall leverage of valuable information technology resources," Gilligan said.

"General John Jumper is very articulate in the explanation of his goal for the Air Force," he said.

Jumper's goal, dubbed "horizontal integration," refers to that sharing of information among various systems and platforms.

"You need all of the air, ground and space elements to interact in order to achieve the synergy envisioned by (General Jumper)," Gilligan said. "However, the complexity of this starts to exceed our ability to deal with it in the human brain, or to write in text, (so) architecting, using formal methods and tools, then becomes the answer."

The true value of enterprise architecture becomes apparent as leaders look to future budgets. According to Gilligan, the architecture will allow people to determine if something should be funded in a particular year's budget based on how the capability contributes to mission accomplishment.

Perhaps more importantly, the architecture could prevent the accidental misspending of money on related items.

"If we can't fund (a project) this year, there may be no sense in funding another project, because we need both to provide the desired operational effect," he said. "In the past, we did not process analytical tools to help identify these issues."

Another benefit from enterprise architecture is the capture of the required system-to-system interactions, which then becomes requirements to be satisfied in the acquisition process.

"The systems architecture should define how the F/A-22 Raptor interacts with an airborne warning and control system aircraft, (which is) interacting with an air operations center," Gilligan said. "This system architecture then feeds into the requirements process for individual systems as well as the budget and development processes."

In the past, Gilligan said, three separate documents had to be generated to achieve the same result.

"We'd write a requirements document, an acquisition document and a budget document, and they would all be different, for different purposes," he said. "Now, as we go forward using architectures, we'll have the relationships defined, and the (same) requirements description in the form of architecture products can be used for the budget justification and by the acquisition community."

Because the enterprise architecture system is so vast, various agencies have been identified to manage certain areas. For example, Gilligan said Air Force Space Command will manage architecture activities for space-related missions, and the deputy chief of staff for installations and logistics will be responsible for logistical architectural needs.

While the term "enterprise" represents the Air Force in its entirety, Gilligan noted that the enterprise architecture concept does not stop there.

"Air Force architectures have to fit a broader context," he said. "We have a lot of efforts under way with the other services and the joint community...so we're going to make sure our architecture approach is in harmony and we can use our architectures to better understand how air and space capabilities can support joint and coalition efforts as well."