TRANSFORMING THE ARCHITECTURE OF INFORMATION MANAGEMENT
STARTING FROM BASICS
The digitization of unstructured formal information had started already in early 1980’s in the Finnish Defence Forces. First there were Personal Computers introduced to replace typing machines. Then, at mid-1990, the first digital content management system was implemented to capture both personal emails and formal correspondence together with the publication of standard operational procedures. The system was based on Lotus Notes in the beginning and included taxonomies and metadata models for all formal unstructured information exchange and records keeping within the FINDEF. There was a demand in early 2000 to update the content management system and migrate from Lotus file types towards Microsoft files. The main driver was to achieve interchangeability between other stakeholders.
The same time, there was a need to update the whole content management system. Thus, a roadmap for migration of file types was created starting from early SmartSuite version 4 evolving through Office XP towards more open file types based on eXtensible Markup Language, XML. The roadmap is illustrated in Figure 31.
Figure 31: A roadmap for migrating the file types for unstructured content within the Finnish Defence Forces
There was a migration window for all legacy file types from SmartSuite version 4 to most current version 9.8 defined. The migration window pushed all content towards one format, SmartSuite 9.8, which was to be supported in read-only function until 2008. All earlier versions together with their applications were cancelled by 2005 (version 4) and 2006 (version 97). The simplifying of office suites also helped in cutting the local support and providing a more stable configuration in workstations. The Microsoft Office 2003 version was defined to be the first family of file types providing a path towards next MS Office versions and more open file types that enabled publication of content as well as archiving better that proprietary file formats.
New file formats opened integration opportunities in IBM Domino, SAP and IBM WebSphere platforms as they were introduced as part of process integration programs in Enterprise Resource Management and C4ISTAR implementation. Integration improved the transferability between unstructured and structured data.
RECOGNISING SITUATION OF THE MATURITY IN CONTENT MANAGEMENT
When the maturity of content management was assessed in the FINDEF, there were three main levels found pictured in Figure 32. The lowest level was based on individual interests, separate ways of working and personal applications in personal computers that stored personal files. Individualism was recognized the hardest cultural boundary to break as some of the Branches and Units within the FINDEF were using Confidentiality as an excuse not to share any information.
Figure 32: Measuring the maturity of content management in FINDEF
The second level of maturity was found in teams and units that were competing against each other, sharing within the team but not elsewhere and sometimes having surprisingly advanced applications to manage their files. There were many closed workplaces established in Lotus Notes platform; each Unit had their intra-web page for internal publications, and closed networks hosted shared drives for restricted content.
The third level of maturity found was Defence Forces wide. Official letters, records and standard operational procedures were captured in common parts of Lotus Notes. People were thinking disseminating information beyond their particular department or team. There were some attempts to share instruction and training content between Defence Schools and Units of Force Production. There were repositories for forms and templates to assist in writing more structured letters and orders. Official letters were accessible to all authorised personnel back to three years in time.
Since the variance in content management culture was found wide, a significant threat was detected for process integration. Thus, ICT rationalization program was tasked to enable the acceleration of content management maturity. The acceleration intention included following goals:
• Enable social communication
• Enable more formal publications
• Enable content sharing with stakeholders outside of Defence Forces
• Improve the confidentiality of content through all sharing and exchange transactions
• Enable content transformation between unstructured and structured repositories
• Build ability to improve formal and structured data exchange between all relevant stakeholders.
ENABLING PROCESS INTEGRATION AND MATURING THE CONTENT MANAGEMENT
TIERA implemented tools and services to improve communication between people and machines as well as the maturity of content management as defined in Figure 33.
Figure 33: Enabling communication and content sharing in the FINDEF
Social communication between people was enabled with Collaboration tools like IBM SameTime. It enabled people to have virtual meetings by sharing presentations, white board and exchanging opinions both in voice and chatting. The collaboration was later enabled also with Video Tele-Conferencing, VTC service between all Units. VTC also enabled unintended signals, body language, included in virtual meetings. These enablers were used 2010 when remote work was officially allowed in Defence Forces. People were permitted to work from the nearest garrison rather than commuting through half the Finland every day.
As telephone devices were taken away from desks, the Computer Telephony Integration in SameTime enabled better awareness of presence and conference meetings. Intranet chatting was also adopted quickly by personnel for informal communication while working.
Shared folders and web pages were substituted with two portals both for Administrative and Operative Environments. People were recommended to publish content on those platforms rather than in their restricted web pages. Pages begun to capture more content from shared files as HTML editing and publishing become easier.
Content sharing with outside stakeholders was improved by creating digital workspaces to be used in integrated projects and development tasks. The official Internet email MIL.FI was secured better, accessed directly from Intranet workstations and file transfer was allowed in controlled manner to get rid of private file sharing with memory sticks.
Similar file sharing was enabled online between Administrative and Operative Environments to have control over the content that flows between confidential levels. Filters and content screening was applied in gateways for monitoring purposes. Enabled official file sharing gradually throttled the informal file sharing and security improved.
As SAP was extended to be the Enterprise Resource Management platform and WebSphere become the portal platform, there was a path created by improving exchange between unstructured and structured data. The Excel-application from MS Office suite was integrated with SAP platform and allowed transfer of data between two worlds. It was imperative that commanding officers were able to extract data from SAP and create reports and presentations quickly and based on factual information. The Word application was similarly integrated with Domino platform and enabled the transformation of Word-document to Domino content.
XML-interfaces (XI) were prepared between SAP and the stakeholders along the value chain via electronic message broker. A gateway structure was providing secure and unbroken transactions between nodes in a long chain of value creation. Another gateway was created to allow outsiders access the SAP of FINDEF. The gateway allowed strategic partners to manage essential information on material warehousing and repair. Information integrity was important for the Defence Forces ability to sustain readiness and be able to deploy forces as needed. The third gateway enabled operations abroad to access home services. It was not necessary to establish isolated entities for support systems in operations anymore. The crew in operations focused only on providing battle management system services to troops rather than running administrative support systems. They were provided via global connections from Homeland. See the concept of information exchange between stakeholders in the value chain in Figure 34.
Figure 34: New gateway structure for data exchange between relevant stakeholders in Defence
TRANSFORMING THE CULTURE IN INFORMATION ASSURANCE AND MANAGEMENT
In enabling the cultural transformation of content management in FINDEF, there were three parallel lines of operation adopted: Information Management, Information Assurance and Computing. The transformation to these enablers is illustrated in Figure 35.
Figure 35: Basic plan in transforming information management, assurance and computing in the FINDEF
The line of information management included support to get rid of last paper-based content and migrate towards electronic documents. It was enabled by content integration, collaboration and new publishing services. The second course of action was to migrate from file based content management towards page and database data management. The migration was enabled by publishing services, tool integration and improved information security. The third course of action was to change the feeling from individually owned content towards Defence owned content. It was imperative to change the culture of “need to know” towards “need to share” to build the Defence Forces as learning organization.
The line of information assurance included increasing the awareness of rights and responsibilities to an information user. The user profile means both consuming and creating information. The awareness was established with the integration of security guidance and operations guidance into the same document of standard operational procedures. The integrated procedures made it was clearer to the user, what was possible and what was not allowed. The second course of action was to improve understanding of publishing and accessing information. There was a profound mistrust of people that prevented publication of sensitive information. It was mitigated by showing what role based access management means and providing exemplary behaviour models of improved ways to publish information. The third course of action was improving the awareness in information confidentiality among users. From individual responsibility, the transformation was done towards organizational responsibility for managing content between levels of confidentiality.
The line of computing included improved access, identity and role management. It enabled an access both for strategic partners and via wireless access. Identity was uncoupled from terminal devices, and Microsoft relied on functions. A full smart card based identity management was introduced together with Single Sign-On, SSO feature in making the life of end users easier but simultaneous the access more secure. Assured identity was transferred to role management instead of applications. Role management provided an underlying layer to manage different roles and their rights to access services and use information. It was possible to differentiate individual and his roles in peace time and war time. Definition of roles become a responsibility to superiors and organizations. Human resources were accountable for issuing smart cards to true identities. A Chief Information Officer was responsible for the whole in each Unit of Defence Forces.
System administration was linked to service management and extended with role and identity management with rigorous implementation of ITIL-processes and IT-service management system. The integrity of services and availability of information become a driving force for ICT Service Provider organizations together with information security.
This ends the series presenting the Transformation of the FINDEF from Enterprise Architecture viewpoints but the conclusion still to be published!
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