FEMA's West: DHS moves forward on EA

More details on the second version of the Homeland Security Department's enterprise architecture should become known over the next three months, a DHS official said today.

The department has pulled together a team drawn from all 22 DHS bureaus to work on the next version of the architecture, said Barry West, chief information officer for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a DHS directorate.

"They are getting people from all the business units together in a room to work on it," West said at a Federal Sources Inc. breakfast in McLean, Va. "You'll hear a lot more over the next three months."

Version 2 of the architecture will drill down into the missions and systems of the bureaus, West said.

FEMA's own enterprise architecture is a major priority, he said. The agency is using a tool from Popkin Software Inc. of New York to build its enterprise architecture and track its progress.

"EA is much like a security effort," West said, "It isn't a project, it's an ongoing process."

FEMA's architecture will integrate with DHS' architecture and the federal enterprise architecture that the Office of Management and Budget is developing for all government agencies, West said.

Enterprise architecture is growing in importance. Because agencies are operating with fewer resources and less money, officials are always looking for ways to reduce costs, he said.

"When you brief us, if you can bring return on investment and show us savings, that's a big plus," he told industry officials.