1. Federal Student Aid Technical Architecture Initiatives Sandy England
Session # 46
Federal Student Aid Technical Architecture Initiatives
Sandy England

2. Objective - Key Target State Vision Enablers
Integrated Technical Architecture
Federal Student Aid Enterprise Portal
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
Security Architecture (SA)
Federal Student Aid Gateway

3. Target State Vision

4. TSV Architecture Overview
Integrated Technical Architecture, Portal, ESB, Security Architecture, Gateway and internal applications are integrated within the enterprise target state vision

5. Key Target State Vision Enablers
Integrated Technical Architecture
Federal Student Aid Enterprise Portal
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
Security Architecture (SA)
Federal Student Aid Gateway

6. What is Integrated Technical Architecture?
Common, shared, proven architecture using standardized tools, technology, and technical support services
An effective technical architecture supports a business’ ability to deliver sufficient resources to users
Provides strategic and economic benefits
Standardized Methods
Product Specialist Support
Standardized Technology
Standardized configuration of hardware and software platforms
Standardized messaging technology to support communications across varying hardware platforms, projects and locations
Methods, standards, policies, and directives for maintaining an integrated environment
Structured approach to evaluate/implement changes into the environment and support problem resolution
Highly trained staff to manage resources and provide services
Manage daily operations, controlled development environment, maintain software, and plan for future requirements
Improved Access

7. Integrated Technical Architecture Benefits
Leverage current investments and assets -
Provides simplified, secure, and integrated access to Federal Student Aid services and resources
Facilitates an enterprise-wide perspective to planning, developing, and delivering IT application systems and services
Significant cost savings -
Reduces hardware, software licensing, and support costs
Ability to share highly skilled product specialists among multiple teams
Improved application performance -
Architecture can be easily scaled to meet capacity and performance requirements
Increase productivity and efficiency -
Applications get “faster and smarter” by implementing best practices, common services, and lessons learned from previous projects

8. Integrated Technical Architecture

9. Product Selection Approach
Investigate high-level functional and technical capabilities of each product to create a short list of vendors to evaluate
Determine business and technical architecture requirements
Research best practices and market research to determine industry leaders of products
Create extensive set of criteria to evaluate the short list
Schedule technical briefings with each shortlist vendor
Evaluate technical capabilities of the products and ability to meet the evaluation criteria
Interview/talk with current customers that are using products to assess support quality, etc.
Conduct Technical Proofs of Concept to determine if products are technically compatible with existing architecture and meet requirements
Determine which products best fit by evaluating their ability to meet the detailed evaluation criteria and understanding their key differentiators
Provide product recommendation based on product’s ability to meet the key selection criteria.

10. Key Target State Vision Enablers
Integrated Technical Architecture
Federal Student Aid Enterprise Portal
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
Security Architecture (SA)
Federal Student Aid Gateway

11. What is a Portal?
An integrated and personalized access point to information, applications, and services
Provides a single, secure, simplified, and personalized access point to business information
Delivers integrated content and applications, within a unified, collaborative workplace
Improved Access
Integration
Interaction
Improved internal use of information
Secure data sharing with external organizations.
Simplified and standardized look and feel
Customized information & services to meet users needs
Access content from multiple sources
Secure Information
Expand portfolio of online transactions
Increase self-services & user self-sufficiency
Analyze "merged" information
Improved Access

12. Portal Benefits Leverage current investments and assets
Increase productivity and efficiency
Improve decision-making
Strengthen constituent goodwill and trust
Improved customer service and cost savings
Standard look and feel

13. Portal Framework
Framework provides a taxonomy for describing portal capabilities

14. Key Target State Vision Enable
Integrated Technical Architecture
Federal Student Aid Enterprise Portal
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
Security Architecture (SA)
Federal Student Aid Gateway

15. What is a Enterprise Service Bus?
Architecture and an infrastructure that unifies and connects services, applications, and resources within a business
Provides the open, standards-based connectivity infrastructure for a service oriented architecture (SOA)
Provides communication between systems through shared services
IT Benefits
SOA Enabler
Integration
Quickly respond to changing business needs
Leverage existing assets in new ways
Reduce software development and maintenance cost
Improve system security, scalability, availability and robustness
Standardize interfaces
Integrate with all new and existing applications
Leverages existing Security Architecture
Improved Access
Promotes reuse
Foster interoperability
Supports incremental implementation

16. Enterprise Service Bus Benefits
Provides the following Web services mediation capabilities -
Centrally apply security (encryption, authentication, & authorization) by leveraging Security Architecture
Audit service requests/replies
Data transformation
Dynamic routing
Invoke and reuse shared services across the enterprise -
Business logic is accessible at an enterprise level, rather than just the application level
Choreograph business flows across the enterprise
Standards-based - vendor neutral

17. Current State EAI EAI Core Capabilities - Assured Message Delivery
Location Transparency
Platform Independence
Protocol Independence
Single Multi-platform API
Data Transformation
Context-based Routing
Publish-Subscribe
High-speed Bulk Transfers (> 100 MB)

18. Transition State ESB

19. Target State ESB
ESB Technologies

20. Key Target State Vision Enablers
Integrated Technical Architecture
Federal Student Aid Enterprise Portal
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
Security Architecture (SA)
Federal Student Aid Gateway

21. What is Security Architecture?
Provides a single, integrated authentication, and authorization framework
Enables consistent Authentication, Authorization, and Accountability
Authentication: Who are you?
Authorization: What are you allowed to do?
Accountability: What did you do?
Enterprise Security Management
Consistent Security
Services
Single sign-on for web applications
Simplified registration/approval processing
Delegated administration
Decrease security risks
Improves maintainability of systems
Offloads “ADHOC” application security from application teams
Improved Access
Consolidated security views and reporting
Flexibility to accommodate new or redeployed systems
Lowers security development and operational costs

22. Security Architecture Benefits
Provides consistent security services & configurations across Federal Student Aid systems -
Decrease security risks
Improves maintainability of systems
Offloads ad-hoc application security from application teams
Gives better service to our customers/partners -
Simplified sign-on for web applications
Simplified registration/approval processing
Delegated administration
Promote enterprise security management -
Consolidated security views and reporting
Flexibility to accommodate new or redeployed systems
Lowers security development and operational costs

23. Security Architecture

24. Target State Security Architecture

25. Key Target State Vision Enablers
Integrated Technical Architecture
Federal Student Aid Enterprise Portal
Enterprise Service Bus (ESB)
Security Architecture (SA)
Federal Student Aid Gateway

26. What is Gateway? Business Objectives Customer Benefits
It is part of an organization's technical architecture that facilitates the communication between internal applications and external systems
Provides separation and security between the outside world and an internal network
Acts as a proxy to broker requests between external partners and Federal Student Aid systems
Business Objectives
Customer Benefits
IT Considerations
Standardizes external exchange of data through a single, virtual, secure gateway
Enables access to key business services for the external community
Right-time exchange of data with trading partners
Simplifies trading partner data exchange
Enables right-time data exchange
Reduces the number of different data exchange formats
Reduces effort required for integration within FSA
Supports a wide range of transport protocols and industry data formats
Improves visibility of transaction workflows with external partners
Web services will be used to facilitate data exchange
Improved Access

27. Gateway Benefits
Creates an enterprise view of external interface information exchanged with Federal Student Aid
Enables centralized management of external interfaces
Provides the capability for an external partner to upload and download files
Provides a layer of security between Federal Student Aid and external partners
Creates well defined procedures for integrating with Federal Student Aid services
Validates and enforces the use of a standard data schema between systems and enables data consistency throughout data exchange process

28. Current State
Multiple communication channels and entry points into Federal Student Aid are not centrally tracked or managed
No real-time data interchanges
Security architecture is not being leveraged

29. Target State Gateway Solution
TSV Gateway solution will be a single communication channel between Federal Student Aid, external partners and external service providers

30. Gateway Framework

31. Contact Information
I appreciate your feedback and comments. I can be reached at:
Name:Sandy England
Phone:

32. Questions?