NASA Enterprise Architecture Volumes 1-5
Posted on Jan 03, 2006
Executive Overview
Enterprise Architecture is a tool that links the mission and strategy of an organization to its Information Technology (IT) strategy. When complemented by strong governance processes, Enterprise Architecture can effectively guide the IT capital investment and planning processes and help an organization optimize the return on its IT investments. Identifying and defining common processes and functions, common information needs of different users, technology standards, and reusable common services that can be leveraged by multiple systems within the organization achieve this optimization.
A strong Enterprise Architecture facilitates the introduction and adoption of new technologies into an organization by separating an organization’s processes and services: the “what,” from the technologies, and the “how” that supports them. This separation allows the technologies, which evolve at a fast rate, to be changed independently from the process or service requirements, which usually evolve at a slower rate. The separation simplifies the introduction of new technologies into an organization. The “Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996” requires each federal agency to develop an enterprise information technology architecture. To facilitate the consistent development of enterprise architectures across federal agencies, the Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) Council developed and published the Federal Enterprise Architecture and the supporting reference models.
NASA’s architectural development is an iterative and continuous process. The Agency is fully committed to working with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the General Accounting Office (GAO), and other entities within the federal government to identify opportunities to collaborate, consolidate, and leverage investments to reach the goal of overall government improvement. The
NASA Enterprise Architecture is based on the Federal Enterprise Architecture and the associated supporting reference models. NASA has extended the Federal framework and reference models, where appropriate, utilizing commercial best practices.
This version of NASA Enterprise Architecture documents the complete Agency Enterprise Architecture, including the Office Automation, IT Infrastructure, and Telecommunications investment category and a representative set of elements from the Program Unique IT and Multi-Program / Project IT investment categories. NASA has determined that in order to continue to meet its mission effectively and efficiently, and to facilitate better program, project and information technology decision making, it is important to develop, communicate, and manage a consistent Agencywide Enterprise Architecture.
NASA has embarked upon a major Information Technology program, the Integrated Information Infrastructure Program, to support the transition from the current “as-is” state to the desired “to-be” state. The information technology segments documented here identify the current state of the NASA information technology environment and define the target state in terms of business, information, application, and technology architecture. In addition, it outlines the transition plan for each segment from the current state to the target state. This document will be updated to incorporate changes in implementation strategy and/or tactics.
Volume 1 NASA Enterprise Architecture (PDF)
Volume 2, NASA Enterprise Architecture: Office Automation, IT Infrastructure, and Telecommunications (PDF)
Volume 4, NASA Enterprise Architecture: Strategies and Structure (PDF)
