White House crafting homeland security technology plan

The White House is writing a massive blueprint, known as an information technology architecture, to integrate the computer systems of all of the agencies that would be moved into the new Homeland Security Department under Bush administration plans.

The Office of Homeland Security, the Office of Management and Budget and the agencies slated to move into the new department are preparing a "communication document" to explain to federal, state and local officials, as well as to private companies, how the plan will work, said Steve Cooper, the chief information officer at the Office of Homeland Security, in an interview with Government Executive.

The new department's architecture will mirror the overall federal enterprise architecture, designed by the Chief Information Officers Council in 1999 as "a road map for the federal government in achieving better alignment of technology solutions with business mission needs."

That alignment has yet to occur. The General Accounting Office has reported that most agencies trying to write their technology architectures haven't moved beyond the planning stage. Norman Lorentz, a former technology company executive, became OMB's chief technology officer in January and was told to help agencies develop their architectures.

The Office of Homeland Security has established three working groups to examine architectures in three of the four proposed divisions of the new department: border and transportation security; emergency preparedness and response; and chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear countermeasures.

Cooper said the Office of Homeland Security is "mapping and documenting the business strategies" for the new department. Those strategies are designed to mesh with the overall homeland security plan that Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge was expected to announce in June. Cooper said that plan would go to President Bush for his approval within the next two to three months.

The national strategy will define the "vision" of what the department hopes to achieve, and what homeland security means for federal, state and local agencies, as well as the private sector, Cooper said.

Cooper described the Homeland Security Department's information architecture as a pyramid, with this vision at the top. The next level down will address "business processes"-such as border security or biodefense-and all their respective activities: clearing people in and out of the country or inspecting shipping containers for explosives, for example.

The third level of the architecture consists of "information products"-such as terrorist watch lists and shipping manifests-that are essential to conducting the department's business, Cooper said.

The fourth and fifth levels cover the actual technologies that would be employed at the new department. Ridge's Office of Homeland Security has asked technology chiefs at the merging agencies to make a quick assessment of the technology assets-including hardware, software applications and databases-that they think are relevant to the new department's mission, Cooper said. These assets may or may not make their way into the department if it is created. The inventory is "probably 60 percent complete."

CIOs commonly list accounting for technology assets among their most difficult tasks. The arduous process of cataloging such assets often must rely on inadequate or incomplete records of what has been purchased or deployed in offices throughout the country. One CIO said recently that finding all the technology assets in a particular agency is like "trying to find all the fat marbled through a piece of steak."

Cooper acknowledged the technology inventory could show a gap between what the vision calls for and what agencies already have. In that case, Cooper said his team would develop a "migration strategy" that could involve both buying new technology and upgrading existing systems.

The overall homeland security strategy, which is being written by a separate team in the Office of Homeland Security, and the development of the technology architecture are proceeding simultaneously. Cooper said that wouldn't stop his team from moving forward with plans for the departmental architecture-even though by design, the architecture can't be executed without the top-level strategy in place.

Agencies involved in homeland security have already launched $6 billion to $8 billion worth of technology modernization efforts, Cooper said. Despite the fact that agencies might be buying and installing incompatible systems, those initiatives haven't been stopped. Rather, Cooper's team is working to coordinate them with the architecture.

Cooper said he hopes to have the inventory of border security and transportation functions completed within the next 90 days. He didn't give an estimated completion date for the entire architecture.

Cooper said whoever is named CIO of Homeland Security will inherit the enterprise architecture and probably take over finishing the plan, presuming the official is named before the entire architecture is complete.