The Cross Flagship Integration (CFI) Architecture Project, which came up with a draft enterprise architecture for all government agencies in November, is intended to overcome the challenge of integrating application environments that have developed in isolation. “The flagship applications and their operating platforms are made up of various components that have been built over a period of time by different groups using diverse technologies," said Ng Wan Peng, Vice President of Multimedia Development Corporation (MDC). "As the need arose for each application to interact with one another, integration approach was implemented in a reactive manner, focusing on specific integration issues. Integration was a mess. It became extremely difficult to maintain, support, debug and enhance the applications."
The CFI Architecture Project standardises common IT issues, enabling different government agencies and high-profile e-government projects to exchange information seamlessly, and securely. Only once all government agencies share the common underlying enterprise architecture will diverse government applications be able to 'talk' to one another.
The framework has already been adopted by Malaysia's Public Service Department, though full adherence to the new standards will vary according to the organisational readiness of individual government departments.
The CFI Architecture Framework’s scope is currently concerned with managing technology across the MSC flagship applications, which include e-government, the national smart card project, tele-healthcare and educational applications. However legacy applications and future requirements were also taken into consideration.
“The greatest benefits will come when the architecture is fully defined and all areas of the MSC flagships are actively using it,” says Ng. “Architecture, not technology, should be the main driver. Enterprise architecture is about using IT strategically, and about integrating business strategy planning and IT strategy.”
Quelle: Public Sector Technology & Management, 02.12.2004
