FACIN: The Brazilian Government Enterprise Architecture
Framework
Vanessa T. Nunes
1
, Claudia Cappelli
2
and Marcus Vinicius Costa
3
1
Departamento de Ciência da Computação, UnB, Brasília, DF, Brazil
2
Departamento de Informática Aplicada, UNIRIO, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
3
Coordenação de Integração e Interoperabilidade, SERPRO, Brasília, DF, Brasil
Keywords: Governmental Enterprise Architecture, EA Framework.
Abstract: The United Nations point that to raise the efficiency and quality of public services is not just a matter of
cutting-edge technologies, but also adopting practices to connect and interoperate governments, which
requires a holistic approach. An Enterprise Architecture (EA) initiative is a consistent feature of strategic
planning, which assists organizations in understanding how processes/services are automated, as well as
helping to reduce organizational complexity and to improve communication, driving organizational change.
We describe FACIN, the Brazilian Government EA Framework to support interoperability and digital
governance among governmental organizations. FACIN aims to foster intra and inter organizational
alignment, and also to provide a basis for the development of methods and best practices to improve the
efficiency of public administration and services. In this paper we present the first results and perceptions.
1 INTRODUCTION
Public Organizations are increasingly seeking ways
to automate their processes and services to society
(citizens, governments, organizations and
companies), which is known by e-government (e-
gov) (UNPACS, 2016). The need for integrating
technology into public services also evidence the
need to better integrate the work system (processes,
data, technology and people), by improving
understanding, communication, reuse and sharing
which is one of the aims of the Brazilian Strategy of
Digital Governance (EGD, 2016).
Accordingly to ePING - Interoperability
Standards for Electronic Government initiative
(EPING, 2016), interoperability can be understood
as the ability of different systems and organizations
to work together and interact to exchange
information in an effective and efficient manner.
Industry (and government) has responded to
these challenges through collaboration and
integration mechanisms (Panetto et al., 2016), it is
not sustainable in a long term. The main reasons
reside on: rapid growth in the variety of system
architecture and the number of e-gov; the enormous
amount of interrelated data; the need to increase
information sharing; and the open data demand. So,
governmental organizations have to decide where to
focus their efforts and finite budget to attend
societies` priorities in an agile and dynamic way.
Such demands require not only knowledge about
how data is to be shared, exchanged and reused but
also what are the concepts related to them, how they
interrelate and what is their context considering the
three pillars that constitute a socio-technical
perspective of computing: people, technology and
organizational processes. It requires a discipline that
unites the diverse government views in different
levels.
Therefore, the EA paradigm has been employed
to integrate organizations through the alignment
between business and technology (Banaeianjahromi
and Smolander, 2016) in a goal oriented approach.
Brazilian Government, with the participation of
expert citizens, academia, organizations and private
companies, is developing FACIN, the Brazilian
Government Enterprise Architecture Framework to
support Governance and Interoperability. FACIN
aims to support the EGD, increasing collaboration
among governmental organizations and improving
the efficiency and transparency of e-gov services
and investments to society. This paper aims to
present FACIN foundation and structural proposal,
the Content Framework, which represents the first
FACIN product under development, and first results
and perceptions.
Nunes, V., Cappelli, C. and Costa, M.
FACIN: The Brazilian Government Enterprise Architecture Framework.
DOI: 10.5220/0006331904330439
In Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2017) - Volume 3, pages 433-439
ISBN: 978-989-758-249-3
Copyright © 2017 by SCITEPRESS Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
433
2 HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The Brazilian Government is composed of
organizations that operate independently. However,
a lot of services transcend the frontiers of each
organization demanding collaboration. Therefore,
the use of a common architectural framework was
justified in order to leverage reuse, interoperability
and unified management of common elements. The
main drivers involves public organizations, experts
from civil society, academy and the following
disciplinary entities are: the Brazilian Association of
Technical Standards, the Brazilian Institute of
Corporate Governance, the Brazilian Institute of
Public Governance, Data Management Association
Brazil, Association of Business Process
Management Professionals, the Open Group, the
International Institute of Business Analysis and the
Court of Auditors of the Union.
FACIN dynamics guard similarities with other
initiatives, where we highlight the Singapore
Government EA (eWave, 2016), the Australian
Government Architecture Framework (AGA, 2016),
the Government EA for New Zealand (GEA-NZ,
2016) and the US Federal EA Framework (FEA,
2016). Those countries were chosen, when this
project began, due to their level of success according
to the 2014 UN Survey (UNPACS, 2014).
We identified common standards adoption such
as: an integrated and shared e-gov strategy among
organizations; the adoption of common architectural
structures to improve efficiency in offering e-gov;
and the intensive use of interoperability and
integration standards strongly supported in the
respective EA models. We believe that we have the
opportunity to learn from those experiences.
Regarding the market practice, existing EA
Frameworks were analyzed due to their extensive
use and continuous evolution. We considered two of
the most well used and discussed frameworks:
TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framework
(TOGAF, 2016) and Zachman Framework
(Zachman, 2016). TOGAF ia an open standard
collaborative EA methodology and framework used
around the world to improve business efficiency.
The Zachman Framework, a proprietary standard,
establishes a total set of descriptive representations
relevant for describing an organization, from
strategic to infrastructure.
The development of FACIN used as a
foundational base these two frameworks (which are
also used by other Governments such as AGA), as
well as successful experiences and recommended
actions by the previously cited countries, taking into
consideration Brazilian administrative, technical and
political organization and goals.
3 FACIN
The main goals of FACIN are: (a) to be the
reference model to be adopted at the federal, state or
municipal level; (b) define the structural blocks to
enable a holistic view; (c) promote interoperability,
management and governance standards; (d) enable
the development of innovative and integrated e-gov;
(e) raise the sharing and reuse of services and assets;
(f) facilitate integration of organizations through
unified models from strategic to infrastructure; and
(g) contribute to the implementation of the EGD.
Some of the principles organizations are to be
adherent when adopting FACIN are: (a) be focused
on society's needs and expectations; (b) common
infrastructure and interoperability to encourage and
enable information sharing; (c) integrated design of
public services; and (d) transparency and open
government.
FACIN consists of four interrelated parts, as
shown in Figure 1: (i) FACIN Architecture
Governance: Describes mechanisms of control and
monitoring of the design and development of
organization’s EA ensuring its efficient and effective
evolution. It also aims to structure resources and
skills; (ii) FACIN Architecture Development
Method: Describes a guide for organizations to
develop and implement models. It aims to propose
directions and guidelines for the development,
implementation and maintenance of organizations’
EA; (iii) FACIN Content Framework: Describes
the structure of concepts that represents the different
organizations’ point of views and the relationship
among them. It also organizes and classifies the
common concepts to unify common knowledge; and
(iv) Standards and Reference Models: Describes
technical and managerial standards, guidelines and
best practices – from the government and the market
– for the development and management of
organizations’ EA.
Figure 1: FACIN Structure.
The development of FACIN is been undertaken
in the following phases: (1) We began developing
the Content Framework, to establish what are the
ICEIS 2017 - 19th International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems
434
most relevant EA concepts for the government. We
have been discussing it inside internal forums. By
December 2016 it is going to be released to public
consultation; (2) The Architecture Development
Method is expected to be started in November 2016;
(3) The Architecture Governance is to be developed
in the first semester of 2017; and (4) The standards
and references are being defined accordingly, to
which part of FACIN they are required.
4 THE CONTENT FRAMEWORK
FACIN Content Framework was divided into 9
views as presented in Figure 2.
Figure 2: FACIN Context Framework.
The Content Framework was conceived so as to
provide analysis of investments in technology,
information and process development in relation to
organization’s Strategy and Societys needs. It was
established three views that govern FACIN: Society
that guides and are also the main focus of Strategy
definition and monitoring and the definition of how
the Governance, Management of Risks and
Management of Compliance of the EA are to be
performed. Thenceforth, Business, Data,
Application, Infrastructure and Security views
outline the major components that governmental
organizations should consider and use in business
transformation initiatives through the realization of
Programs and Projects.
For each view the following items were
proposed: (i) a description of the view with its
purposes and benefits; (ii) the value of the view in
relation to the others; (iii) critical success factors;
(iv) roles and responsibilities; (iv) policies and
guidelines; (v) associated patters and best practices;
and (vi) elements that represent a set of useful
description of the view. These items compose the
Reference Model (RM) of each view of FACIN and
are to be used for all governmental organizations.
The elements comprises: (a) a conceptual
metamodel that defines and relates the main
concepts; (b) a set of common artifacts (documents,
sheets) that are to be maintained by the organization;
and (c) a taxonomy of the common terms.
FACIN Content Framework is composed of 9
Reference Models: Strategic Reference Model
(SRM); Governance, Risk and Compliance
Reference Model (GRM); Business Reference
Model (BRM), Data Reference Model (DRM);
Application Reference Model (ARM); Infrastructure
Reference Model (IRM); Security Reference Model
(SecRM); Programs and Projects Reference Model
(P2RM); and Society Reference Model (SocRM).
Next section we describe SRM as an example.
4.1 Strategic Reference Model (SRM)
SRM aims to reflect the organization’s strategy,
forms of evaluation and corresponding initiatives in
a unified view promoting sharing and reuse of
strategic analysis and experiences.
SRM goals are to: (i) promote strong alignment
between the initiatives and strategies of
governmental organizations in relation to the
processes, data and technology carried out and their
intended results; (ii) support the development of cost
models for ICT services and capabilities; (iii) serve
as a mechanism to evidence the linkage of the
strategy decisions and the impact on services; and
(iv) promote transparency and accountability in
government.
The expected benefits are: (i) to increase
effectiveness and efficiency of investments; (ii) to
increase effectiveness of the results produced by
governmental organizations in relation to desired
goals; (iii) to increase the efficiency and
effectiveness of organizations in the implementation
of actions and delivery of governmental programs;
(iv) to promote interoperability among governmental
organizations; and (v) to increase transparency.
It allows the setting of goals and government
strategies in a uniform view. Each organization must
map their actions, programs, projects, IT and data
assets and measure the alignment to their respective
intended goals and the goals of the Government as a
whole. Governmental organizations can adopt
common capabilities, share services and collaborate
with each other to improve the overall experience of
its customer service, increase the impact of public
policies and reduce costs. When creating a
consolidated view of government transformation, it
is possible to identify new opportunities to improve
and share government services in all governmental
organizations and boost the efficiency, effectiveness
and transformation across them.
SRM promotes values to other views by setting
goals a strategic vision of goals, targets and
indicators: (i) GRM: to guide the governance model,
FACIN: The Brazilian Government Enterprise Architecture Framework
435
performance monitoring, risk and compliance
management; (ii) BRM: to guide the definition,
management and improvement of processes and
services; (iii) DRM: for governance, sharing and
quality assurance of data and information; (iv)
ARM: for governance, investment, sharing and
quality assurance of applications and IT services; (v)
IRM: to guide the governance, investment, sharing
and quality assurance of the IT infrastructure assets;
(vi) SecRM: to guide the actions and investments in
security; (vii) P2RM: to guide investments,
governance and quality assurance of governmental
programs and projects; (viii) SocRM: oriented to the
concerns and interests of society.
4.1.1 Conceptual Model
The main concepts to represent the strategic
architecture of a governmental organization is
presented in Figure 3 (first version), and it was
based on the concepts defined in the 2016-2019
Multi-Year Brazilian Governmental Plan (PPA,
2016) and in the National Program for Public
Management and Debureaucratization (GesPública,
2016), that supports the development of solutions
that enable continuous improvement of management
systems of public organizations. Table 1 presents the
definition of each concept. The concepts’
instantiation is carried out at a Federal level and are
to be deployed and specialized for each
governmental organization, which allows for
uniformity and consistency within the government.
Figure 3: SRM Conceptual Model.
4.1.2 Taxonomy
The standardization by means of a unified taxonomy
provides a baseline for all governmental
organizations to describe their measurement
practices. This strengthens interoperability between
them, as their strategic visions can be easily
understood by all organizations and society.
Table 1: SRM Concepts Definition.
Concept Definition
Strategic Axis
It represents the strategic lines defined by
the government for the 4 year Plan.
Strategic
Guideline
Represents the guidelines that drive the
main agendas for the next 4 years. They
dictate the strategic alignment required for
the preparation of the Thematic Programs.
Ex.: Combating poverty;.
Thematic
Program
The 54 Thematic Programs’ scope
represents the challenges and guides the
management and monitoring of the Plan.
Ex.: Social Security; Agrarian Reform;
Mgmt.,
Maint. and
Serv. Prog.
It represents the actions destined to the
support, management and maintenance of
government actions.
Goal
It guides tactically the actions for what
must be done in relation to the challenges,
demands and opportunities.
Ex.: Promoting Education for transit.
Governmental
Organization
It represents the governmental
organizations responsible for a goal.
Indicator
It represents the set of parameters that
allows the following of different aspects
of the evolution of a goal.
Target
It represents the goal range of
measurement.
Initiative
It represents the means that enable the
goals and its targets, explaining the "how
to" performed by organizations.
Following the concepts previous defined, we
proposed the taxonomic decomposition presented in
Figure 4.
Figure 4: SRM Taxonomy.
Each one of the four Strategic Axis unfolds into
one or more Strategic Guidelines and vice-versa.
Each Strategic Guideline unfolds into one or more
Thematic Programs and vice-versa. Each Thematic
Program can be measured by or more indicators.
PPA 2016-2019 detailed and unfolded all the
concepts but the indicators.
4.1.3 Artifacts
Table 2 describes the set of common artifacts that
are to be generated, maintained and publicized by
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the organizations in order to promote collaboration
and sharing between them and with society.
Table 2: SRM Artifacts.
Artifact Definition
Multi-Year
Plan (PPA)
It describes the strategic planning at the
Federal level for the period of 4 years.
Organizationa
l Strategic
Planning
It describes the governmental
organization’s strategic planning in a
short, medium and long-term.
Taxonomy of
indicators
It describes the structure of the reference
taxonomy of indicators.
Organization´
s goals and
targets model
It describes the organization´s goals
hierarchy and respective target.
Organization´
s Initiative
Portfolio
It describes programs, projects and
organizational actions to be undertaken.
Business
Model
It describes how the organization operates
p
resenting the services and how they
interrelate to meet organizational goals.
5 DISCUSSIONS
During FACIN development, its main purposes and
relation with EGD challenges were presented and
publicized as well as FACIN’s structure (Figure 1).
A public consultation was performed from January
to June of 2016 (http://www.participa.br). All
opinions were in favour of the initiative. Some
suggestions have been taken in consideration in the
development of the Content Framework and others
will be used for the next pieces of FACIN.
Meanwhile, on November 2015, a first EA
training course was realized by the Federal Data
Processing Service and cosponsored by The Open
Group. We discussed EA concepts under FACIN
and the TOGAF Framework in the Brazilian context.
Participants discussed their specific problems and
developed an architecture proposition for their
solution. A Forum to present and discuss the Content
Framework with Society was performed on October
20th 2016 been freely broadcasted. Adjustments
were taken and the Content Framework was under
public consultation until 31th December of 2016.
Thereon we conducted a series of visits into
participants’ organizations that will be used as pilots
for the first version of the Content Framework.
5.1 Related Work
The use of implemented EA practices can avoid
efforts to reinvent concepts, without limiting the
possibilities of innovation. Therefore, regarding the
Content Framework we analysed the following
approaches.
The Zachman Framework is one of the oldest
and worldwide used by companies and governments
around the world since the mid-80s. It was important
for the discussion and definition of the perspective
level and detail FACIN should support.
Among collaborative standards, developed by
practitioners, suppliers, academics and specialists,
TOGAF is the most widely practiced worldwide
both in private and public organizations. TOGAF 9.1
Content Framework was important to discuss how to
group organizational elements into specific
organizational viewpoints. The Open Group
Archimate 3.0 Standard was also used as a
foundational to discuss the relevant information at
enterprise architectural level.
From among the Governmental EA Frameworks
we identified that they have a lot in common when it
comes to adapt ideas from EA standards and in
relation to the high flexibility they propose. They are
also very similar. FEA is one of the first EA
Frameworks first published in 1999. It was
conceived to be implemented in any Agency and to
offer transversal services among Agencies and other
organizations (public and private). Its structure is
used as the basis for several other Government EA
Frameworks. AGA, from Australia, has a strong
influence from FEA but more focused on e-
participation. In its 3
rd
edition a reference model for
each organizational viewpoint is detailed proposing
a taxonomy, common artefacts, and a conceptual
metamodel (for some viewpoints). The aim is to
provide a common language among agencies. GEA-
NZ, from New Zealand, has a strong influence from
both FEA and AGA but it leverages the two by
defining more clearly concepts and artifacts oriented
to the government as a whole and to the agency
level. eWave, from Singapore, was first published in
2002 focused on technology and since 2007 it has
encompassed a business viewpoint. A central
repository was created to serve as a single EA
repository for the entire government, allowing
business and ICT information to be captured in a
consistent manner using established standards.
FACIN Content Framework proposes to leverage
from those approaches mainly in three items: GRC,
Security and Transparency. It proposes a viewpoint
to represent GRC aspects through specific concepts,
a global taxonomy and artefacts to unify the
communication about GRC over each organization.
The SecRM is to be more focused on reliability
rather than traditional aspects such as secrecy or
confidentiality. It goes in line with transparency
FACIN: The Brazilian Government Enterprise Architecture Framework
437
initiatives, which is cited by all four government
frameworks presented, but not in a systematic way.
FACIN intends to present information and actions to
support de development and management of
transparency actions as an integral part of the EA
(Nunes et al, 2016).
5.2 Next Steps
Currently all 9 views are available (https://www.
governoeletronico.gov.br/eixos-de-atuacao/governo/
interoperabilidade/governanca-e-interoperabilidade).
So far, its main ideas have been accepted and public
organizations recognize its value. During 2017 each
Reference Model will be under a detailed
development and evaluation congregating a larger
group of participants and considering ideas from the
Public Consultation and the Forum. Afterwards,
pilots aiming at evaluating FACIN’s Content
Framework will be performed. The aim is to identify
how it can help answering or supporting
visualization of current and urgent questions internal
to organizations and among them.
6 CONCLUSIONS
The management and effective use of information
through the use of ICT is the key to the success of
public organizations in offering better services to
society. FACIN aims to meet this need by providing
a strategic point of view for the development of ICT.
Its establishment is a key element to leverage the
Brazilian e-gov program based on best practices to
promote the integration of processes, systems and
information, with maximum stability and flexibility.
In addition, it serves as a conceptual framework for
defining interoperability standards in technical,
semantic and organizational dimensions, to support
organizations in collaborating with each other.
Governments around the world are currently
investing efforts and resources in this regard,
seeking in the digital governance the needed
discipline to make this synergy and in the EA the
foundation to achieve it, i.e., a pattern that can be
implemented as common sense, responsible for
effective interoperability in scale, as it provides
transparency about the responsibilities, operations,
resources and results obtained. As a reference
model, FACIN aims to integrate architectures from
the various organizations, enabling interoperability
across the government. From its adoption, we intend
that the interested parties will refer their
architectural models to the views of the framework,
promoting alignment and ensuring the progress of
their initiatives based on this new discipline.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Our thanks to the Ministry of Planning,
Development and Management (MP), to the Federal
Data Processing Service (SERPRO) and to The
Open Group for sponsoring this initiative.
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