The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) of 2004, as amended, calls for the development of an ISE to provide and facilitate the "means for sharing terrorism information among all appropriate Federal, State, local, and tribal entities, foreign partners, and the private sector through the use of policy guidance and technologies."
On December 16, 2005, the President issued a Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies on the Guidelines and Requirements in Support of the Information Sharing Environment that included requirements to develop a common framework for the sharing of information.
In compliance with the President's Memorandum, the PM-ISE has defined the Architecture Program of the ISE through three documents:
- ISE Drivers and Requirements Specification;
- ISE Enterprise Architecture Framework (ISE EAF); and,
- ISE Profile and Architecture Implementation Strategy (ISE PAIS).
Compliance with the guidance and requirements outlined in these documents significantly increases ISE participants' ability to securely: (1) connect to, (2) participate within, and (3) share information across the ISE.
ISE Drivers and Requirements Specification
The ISE Drivers and Requirements Specification describes the authoritative mandates (e.g., Executive Orders, Public Laws) that direct the ISE. These ISE Drivers and Requirements are strategic in nature and establish direction to bring about ISE specific results. The ISE Drivers and Requirements Specification has been created to include requirements that are aligned to the six ISE investment priorities developed for the FY 10-14 planning cycle.
Document links:
- ISE Shared Spaces and Core: Discussion Paper for the ISC
- Privilege Management and Data-Level Access Control Fact Sheet
- ISE Enterprise Architecture Framework (EAF), Version 2.0
- ISE EAF Fact Sheet, Version 2.0
- ISE Profile and Architecture Implementation Strategy (PAIS), Version 2.0
- ISE Guidance #110 (ISE PAIS, Version 2.0)
- ISE PAIS Fact Sheet
ISE Enterprise Architecture Framework
Enterprise architectures assist organizations in determining whether resources are aligned to their internal mission and strategic goals and objectives, and are useful tools for influencing decisions affecting business and information technology investment portfolios. This management tool helps ISE participants' view the relationship among mission/goals, business and information, technology and transitional strategies through an analysis of the current environment (AS-IS) against desired future environment (TO-BE). The PM-ISE developed the ISE EAF "with the objective of establishing a decentralized, comprehensive, and coordinated environment." The ISE EAF provides a common architectural structure for agencies to incorporate their information sharing capabilities into the ISE. The ISE EAF provides a logical structure of ISE business processes, information flows and relationships, services, and high-level data packet descriptions and exchange relationships.
The ISE EAF has three objectives:
- Provide a comprehensive, strategic description of the overall ISE Architecture;
- Establish an architectural framework for implementing ISE capabilities; and
- Identify key architectural decisions which have been made or must be made.
The "Virtual Environment to Share Information" figure below illustrates the general ISE architectural concept. Following the steps outlined above in the ISE Implementation Life Cycle, ISE participants in conjunction with ISE Implementation Agents will provide their shareable assets to ISE Shared Spaces to promote reuse and potential cost saving opportunities to discover and search information in support of the ISE mission.
ISE Profile Architecture and Implementation Strategy (PAIS)
ISE PAIS V2.0 provides guidance to ISE participants for developing their information sharing segment architecture and trusted repository for information that will be shared in the ISE (ISE Shared Space). A companion document to the ISE EAF, this ISE PAIS supports efforts to build upon and leverage existing policies, business processes, and technologies in use by Federal, State, local and tribal governments that support information sharing across the ISE community in a manner that fully protects the legal rights of all United States persons. This ISE PAIS provides guidance to ISE participants as they seek to implement information sharing capabilities, connect to other ISE participants, expose data, and access ISE data and services.
The ISE PAIS is a companion document to the ISE EAF and identifies implementation guidance compiled from the ISE Drivers and Requirements Specification. The ISE PAIS recognizes the ISE EAF as an approved and accepted framework for structuring and describing information sharing services, systems, and processes required to participate in the ISE. The ISE PAIS presents a holistic approach to the ISE Architecture Implementation Life Cycle, which correlates with the Office of Management and Budget's Federal Segment Architecture Methodology (FSAM). The detailed description of the FSAM process can be found at www.fsam.gov.
Institutionalizing Sharing
Many ISE participants are working hard to make information sharing part of internal policy and business process structure. For example, some have initiated or completed development of their Information Sharing Enterprise Architecture (EA) or their Information Sharing Segment Architectures (ISSAs) using ISE EAF architectural principles and approved ISE standards. Links to these ISE participants EA and ISSAs and documented source documents are posted below to assist in reuse and further collaboration opportunities for implementation within the ISE.
- The DHS Regional Sharing Service (RSS) initiative deployed information sharing technologies and operating policies in compliance with the ISE EAF supporting information sharing between the ICE Pattern Analysis and Collection System (ICEPIC) and local law enforcement agencies in Seattle WA, Laredo TX, and Los Angeles CA.
- The DOJ is building information sharing segment architectures leveraging concepts from the ISE EAF, with a focus on State and local law enforcement sharing through capabilities such as the N-DEx, supported by LEO and RISS, and the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (NLETS), a state owned system connecting all 50 states and territories along with every federal agency with a Justice component.
- Individual states, such as Florida, New York, Texas, and California, are using ISE guiding documents for new initiatives with Suspicious Activity Reporting (SAR) implementation.
- The national health care community is considering leveraging ISE EAF concepts to help meet its national health information sharing needs.
- The DHS is leveraging National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) and ISE EAF guidance to construct 50 reusable information exchanges across the full range of its mission areas; including leveraging NIEM to develop the Common Alerting Protocol (CAP), a simple, general format for exchanging all-hazard emergency alerts and public warnings over all kinds of networks.