White papers offer e-gov component architecture help

The Federal Enterprise Architecture Program Management Office today released a component-based architecture white paper detailing the technology standards that could support the Office of Management and Budget’s 25 e-government projects.At the same time, the CIO Council’s architecture working group made public the second version of its E-Government Architecture Guidance, which supplements the component-based architecture white paper by outlining an approach to define components needed to cost and plan e-government programs. Officials had hoped to release the CIO Council guidance by Sept. 30 [see story, ].The component-based architecture white paper provides a brief definition of the technology that project managers should consider, and a Web link to find out additional information. OMB is not mandating the use of these technologies, but the platforms are scaleable, secure and interoperable, the paper said."The purpose of this white paper is to provide a framework and guidance for the technology standards and principles that will support and govern the [25] presidential priority e-government initiatives as well as future efforts directed to reuse technology components across the federal government," said Norm Lorentz, OMB chief technology officer in the paper’s introduction.The paper defines HTML technologies such as extensible markup language or universal description, discovery and integration as well as Microsoft .Net and Java 2 Enterprise Edition platform standards, security standards and lists the benefits, challenges and scope of a component based architecture.The e-government architecture document discusses data architecture principles such as interoperability, physical integration and privacy. It also detailed the elements in the application and technology architectures.The guidance "provides an initial set of terminology, architectural concepts, standards and technology models that provide a common foundation for e-government initiatives," the paper said.Both papers can be found at .