Office of the Chief Information Officer &
High Performance Computing and Communications
Enterprise Architecture
Enterprise Architecture (EA) is both a process and a living document that provides a blueprint to guide the development/acquisition of efficient and secure Information Technology (IT) solutions to meet the enterprise’s mission and objectives. At NOAA, the EA augments the Strategy, Execution, and Evaluation (SEE) function to enable:
- Analysis of IT alternatives to close performance gaps
- Identification and elimination of redundant IT investments (leverage shared investments and enterprise solutions), and
- Establishment of technical standards and architectural principles to maximize sharing of data across programs and applications (removal of stovepipes).
Based on industry best practices and government-wide standards (e.g., the Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework), the NOAA EA provides a standard framework and methodology to describe various dimensions of NOAA as an enterprise. Specifically, the NOAA EA documents enterprise-wide performance, business, application (service), data and infrastructure requirements of each mission goal, and the interrelationships amongst these requirements.
The NOAA EA seeks to maximize collaboration on shared enterprise-wide IT solutions, enable reuse of existing IT assets wherever possible, and move NOAA towards a standards-based IT environment. Working in concert with SEE, the NOAA EA also seeks to:
- Develop a corporate vision of NOAA's future IT environment, based on enterprise-wide business needs and priorities
- Identify and promote smart architectural principles to guide IT behavior and establish a secure, interoperable, and agile IT environment that can rapidly evolve to meet emerging business needs and priorities
- Facilitate a broadly vetted and consensus definition of the IT technical standards for use throughout NOAA.
- Analyze current IT assets and to identify areas where changes could lead to cost savings
- Provide a “line-of-sight” traceability between IT resources and their contribution to the achievement of program goals
Additional EA Information:
The NOAA Enterprise Architecture document (version 4.0) is available through a link on the EA Committee webpage.
NOAA Enterprise Architecture Committee
Related links:
Department of Commerce Enterprise EA Site
Federal Enterprise Architecture