Core.gov undergoing renovation

The Office of Management and Budget is revamping Core.gov, its repository for governmentwide reusable components, said Dick Burk, the federal government's chief architect.

Components are applications that, either by themselves or in combination with other networked components, electronically complete business processes.

But the contents of Core.gov have been only ambiguously useful because of the wide range of artifacts posted within it. “We have a lot in there,” Burk said, speaking at a Washington, D.C., event sponsored by InfoWorld.

“What we’ve decided to do is throw it all out,” Burk added. Officials are establishing a new governance process and “have begun a top review of various service components for inclusion” into the repository, he said.

Core.gov will also take on a larger role as a collaborative tool for participants in governmentwide projects such as the lines of business.

The federal enterprise architecture is driving government to become a component-based organization, Burk said. OMB is examining new potential line of business initiatives, including information technology infrastructure.

“I don’t know whether this will be consolidation of IT infrastructure, whether it’ll be standardization across multiple agencies, or whether it’ll simply be a series of smart buys,” Burk said. “There certainly seems to be the promise for saving quite a bit of money and improving the service.”

Another possible new line of business is government procurement of IT, Burk said. “I would love to have procurement either consolidated, certainly standardized.” A major hurdle, however, is that the procurement process is complex and qualified personnel are a scarce resource. But “my inclination is that is ripe for consolidation,” Burk added. “We are in the background doing a fair amount of analysis.”