Abstract
The Enterprise Architecture Management System ( EAMS  ) is a U.S. government-owned, Web-based tool used to track and analyze an organization's enterprise architecture. As an automated tool, EAMS simplifies the management of a large amount of information and provides access to this information, relationships among information elements, and work products. EAMS is becoming a popular tool in the federal IT community with approximately 21 federal organizations in the process of reviewing or implementing it. EAMS is not perfect, and several "early adopter" organizations have identified necessary modifications and desired enhancements. However, it does not make business sense to have separate federal organizations making enhancements to EAMS at the same time. Doing so could result in: -- Spending money for multiple fixes to the same problem simultaneously, -- EAMS --fracturing-- with multiple incompatible versions of EAMS arising, and -- An uncoordinated approach that puts the government in a weak negotiating position when dealing with support contractors and will most likely lead to higher support costs. Thus a consortium of federal agencies is working to manage EAMS an open source development project. Specifically, the U.S. Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, and Labor, and the National Technology Alliance arm of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency are in the process of taking EAMS open source. This presentation describes some of the challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned from doing so. |