Post on 29-Apr-2018
U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
USDA IT Modernization
-Chris Smith
-Chief Information Officer, USDA
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U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
Overview
• Background
• Challenges
• Strategic Approach
• Initiatives
• Acreage Crop Reporting and Streamlining Initiative (ACRSI)
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U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
USDA Background
The Department of Agriculture (USDA) is a diverse and
complex organization with programs that touch the lives of
all Americans every day:
• More than 100,000 employees
• Over 300 programs worldwide, leveraging an extensive
network of Federal, State, and local cooperators.
• 6,000 + offices around the Globe
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U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
USDA Background
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Vision
To help America’s rural communities thrive and foster innovation as aresult of expanded economic opportunities and sustainable agriculturalproduction that nourishes America’s children and the world andconserves the Nation’s natural resources
Goals
• Assist rural communities to create prosperity so they are self-sustaining, repopulating, and economically thriving
• Ensure our national forests and private working lands are conserved, restored, and made more resilient to climate change, while enhancing our water resources
• Help America promote agricultural production and biotechnology exports as America works to increase food security
• Ensure that all of America’s children have access to safe, nutritious, and balanced meals
U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
USDA IT Portfolio
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• 150,000 desktops/laptops
• 7,000 servers
• 5 Enterprise Data Centers
• ~110,000 Users
• ~ 6,000 Offices
U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
USDA IT Challenges
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• Complex Business Models
• Multiple Business Verticals
• Broad Geographical Presence
• Aged Infrastructure – Much Of It Well Beyond Useful Life
• Outdated Technology – Many Systems Based on 1980s
Technology
• Lack of a Cohesive Strategy – Until Now!
U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
USDA IT Modernization Framework
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Workflow
Content Mgt/Messaging/Collaboration
Mission Specific/Agency Specific Systems
Financial/ERP HR System GIS
UTN - Networks/Communications
Enterprise Data Center Hosting
Disaster Recovery/COOP
Service Desk
INFRASTRUCTURE
IT Security: Tools, Processes & People
IT Security: Tools, Processes & People
eAuthentication, Identity & Access Management
eAuthentication, Identity & Access Management
IT S
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Security
Departmental Infrastructure
Enterprise Applications
Mission/Agency Applications
USDA Business Processes/Value Chains
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U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
USDA IT Modernization Strategic Drivers
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• Mission Focused/Business Driven Information Technology
Leadership, Services and Innovative Solutions
• Unified USDA Architecture, Systems and Infrastructure
• Robust, Comprehensive IT Security and Privacy
• Pro-Active Stewardship of Information Technology
• World Class Workforce, World Class Workplace (WCW2)
U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
Modernization Initiatives -Enhancing Service Delivery
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Mission
• Comprehensive Loan Program (CLP)
• Modernize and Innovate the Delivery of Agricultural Services (MIDAS)
• Public Health Information System
• RMS IT Modernization (ITM)
• Web Based Supply Chain Management (WBSCM)
• Acreage Crop Reporting Streamlining Initiative (ACRSI)
Communications Collaboration Productivity
Foundational
• Financial Management Modernization Initiative (FMMI)
• Agriculture Security Operations Center (ASOC)
• Optimized Computing Environment (OCE)
• Enterprise Data Centers (EDC)
• Next Generation Network
• Unified Communications
U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
Modernization Initiatives - Benefits
• Streamlined service delivery across programs
• Usage of new technology
• Process and data standardization across programs
• Provision and promote self service for users
• Leverage Geospatial Intelligence
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U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
Acreage Crop Reporting and Streamlining Initiative (ACRSI) - Drivers
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• Based on listening sessions with producers and employees, the
Secretary has asked Deputy Under Secretary FFAS Michael Scuse
and USDA CIO Chris Smith to simplify the acreage reporting
process.
• The project is to focus on establishing a common USDA
framework for Producer commodity reporting in support of USDA
programs that will enable the producer to report common data
once and RMA, FSA, NRCS and NASS to share the data to
eliminate duplicate reporting by producers.
• Critical activity in defining data standards to support
modernization initiatives
U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
Acreage Crop Reporting and Streamlining Initiative (ACRSI) – Drivers (cont)
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• Comments from meeting with Precision Ag Industry, USDA
Agencies and Approved Insurance Providers in July
• Private industry needs the common business elements, commodity identifiers,
data format and standards for USDA program participation in order to meet
standards required by agencies.
• USDA needs to resolve or provide translations for commodity differences and
major reporting differences such as crop insurance units and FSA Farm, Tract
and Field.
• Common Land Unit data elements and reporting standards are needed to allow
service providers or producers to use in their systems for record keeping.
• Compliance and oversight groups need to agree with the standards and
processes for calibrating Precision Ag equipment for USDA acceptance of the
information.
U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
The ACRSI Program
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• Acreage Crop Reporting and Streamline Initiative (ACRSI)
Charter was approved in July 2010
• ACRSI is sponsored by the Deputy Undersecretary of Farm
and Foreign Agricultural Services (FFAS) and the Department
of Agriculture Chief Information Officer (CIO)
• The Executive Steering Committee is comprised of the
administrators of the RMA, FSA, NRCS, and NASS
• Project team of over 50 agency Subject Matter Experts has
been established and meets weekly to define a common
USDA framework for Producer Commodity Reporting
U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
ACRSI – Goal and Benefits
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Goal
Establish data standards and framework for common information used for
producer commodity reporting to USDA
Objectives
• Develop Data Standards for collection, reporting and maintenance of USDA program
data and a multi-agency Governance Process
• Publish the standards on National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) to encourage
universal adoption in agriculture service providers systems and technologies thus
assisting producers in meeting USDA requirements
• Establish process to “share” and leverage data across agency systems
• Provide producers the option to report directly to a consolidated USDA Reporting site
U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
ACRSI – Goal and Benefits (cont)
Benefits
• Simplify producer reporting
• Facilitate the implementation of the comprehensive USDA reporting strategy
• Minimize duplicate data entry
• Maximize data reuse
• Increase reliability, accuracy, integrity, and completeness of data
• Assist in early detection and prevention of waste, fraud, and abuse
• Process and data standardization to provide a framework for other modernization initiatives
The Project will
• Consider the voluntarily use of Precision Ag software and equipment to assist producers in meeting program participation requirements
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U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
ACRSI Scope
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• Department-wide standardization of data and processes for
the following Business Areas
• Producer/Business Entity Identification
• Annual Crop/Commodity Report
• Land Location Information
• Crop/Commodity Production
• Implementation of the USDA Data Governance Process
• Release of approved standards for Government,
Commercial and Public use in National Information
Exchange Model (NIEM)
U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
NIEM at a Glance
NIEM is a Federal, State, Local ,Tribal and Private inter-agency initiative providing a foundation
for seamless information exchange. NIEM is more than a data model, it is a community and
has a technical and support framework.
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Support Framework
Tools for Development and
Discovery
Established Training Program
Implementation Support
Community
Self-Managing Domain Stewards
Formal Governance Processes
Online Repositories
Mission-Oriented Domains
Technical Framework
Data Model
XML Design Rules
Development Methodology
Predefined Deliverables (IEPD)
U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
Scope of NIEM
NIEM is a data layer standard and intentionally does not address
all of the necessary technologies needed for information sharing.
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U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
NIEM Technical Architecture
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NIEM Core consists of data
elements that are commonly
understood across domains
NIEM Domains include mission
specific data that is
managed through
independent
stewards
Agriculture domain
will be added
through the efforts
of the ACRSI
project
U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
ACRSI – Critical Deliverables
• Short Term (<6 Months)
• Establish ACRSI data elements including common and unique sets of
valid values, attributes, collection requirements, and validation rules for
those data elements
• Customer (Producer/ Business Entity)
• Commodity (Crop)
• Location (CLU, PLSS, County Codes)
• Production
• Establish multi-agency governance process for maintaining the ACSRI
data elements
• Review impact of Section 1619 as it relates to the availability and access
to the CLU
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U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of the CIO
ACRSI – Critical Deliverables (cont)
• Medium Term (6 – 18 months)
• Release the standardized schema to the public through a National
Information Exchange Model (NIEM) repository
• Determine a Process for USDA Users and Producers to maintain and
retrieve their Producer/entity information
• Long Term (> 18 months)
• Implement process for Producers to input, retrieve and maintain certain
Producer/business entity information
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