If ever a technology seemed tailored to the needs of government, it is service-oriented architecture. SOAs link disparate systems, but still make federal agencies think.
As the business of government, like that of the rest of the world, increasingly is done digitally, managing official records becomes more important. It isn't only the volume of information that's changing; oversight required to manage electronic records also is also increasing.
While Web-based applications solved the problem of how to get applications to users and centrally maintain them, they presented new technical challenges for the rapid application development tools needed to build and deploy them.
To see how the business-process data is being applied at federal agencies, log into the Federal Enterprise Architecture Management System. Maintained by the Federal Enterprise Architecture Program Management Office at the Office of Management and Budget, this Web tool lets federal users browse a unified reference model.
