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The Dream of a Common Language:Extending the Role of the Logical Data Model

DAMA-NCR MeetingJanuary 10, 2006Deborah L. Brooks

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Agenda

• The Beginning

• The Journey

• The Dream

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Background

Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) Program

• First focus of the Customs & Border Protection (CBP) Modernization Initiative

• Supports CBP’s priority mission by:– Assisting in targeting high-risk cargo– Improving previous measures against the threat of terrorists and terrorist

weapons– Expediting legitimate trade

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The Beginning

The ACE Logical Data Model (LDM)

• Representation of the information needs for cargo-related business operations

• Foundation for physical database design for ACE releases

• Contains:– 50 Subject Areas– 925 Entities– 10084 Attributes

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Impressive, but is it right?

Desired LDM characteristics:

• Complete• Correct• Consistent• Integrity• Aligned• Integrated

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The Journey

ACE LDM Validation Goals

• Confirmation of existing entities, attributes and relationships

• Identification of:– Missing entities, attributes and relationships– Incorrect relationships– Redundant entities, attributes and relationships– Unused / irrelevant entities and attributes

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Horizontal Integration

Notes: • ACE Concept of Operations (ConOps) contains high-level business process flows.• ACE Business Process Architecture (BPA) is currently under development. The CBP Enterprise Business Process Architecture (EBPA) and ACE Release Business Processes (BPs) were used as a proxy for ACE BPA.

ACELDM

ACEConOps

ACEBPA

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Vertical Alignment – Top Down

ACELDM

New Acronyms:• Department of Homeland Security (DHS) • Enterprise Conceptual Data Model (ECDM)

CBPECDM

DHSCDM

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Vertical Alignment – Bottom Up

ACELDM

New Acronyms:• Physical Data Model (PDM)

ACERelease

PDM

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Benefits

• Cross-validation of other architecture artifacts (ECDM, BPA)

• (Identification of process overlaps across ACE releases)

• Easy identification of implementation timeframe through color-coding of ACE LDM entities by ACE Release

• Positioned to support federal information-sharing initiatives such as the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA) Data Reference Model (DRM) at either a logical or physical level

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Information Sharing

Extended the links to the ACE LDM for:

• Information Sharing Stakeholders– Mapped ACE LDM to external organizations – Indicated if organization is a Consumer of data from ACE or Provider of data

to ACE

• Standard Trade data interface

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International Trade Data Set Standard Data Set

• Collection, use and dissemination of trade and transport data

• Supports the international trade process and U.S. border regulations and enforcement responsibilities

• Contains 1060 standardized data elements representing the harmonization of 8900 agency data elements from 21 Participating Government Agencies

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International Trade Data Set Standard Data Set Links

• Participating Government Agency Data Elements

• World Customs Organization Trade Data Model– Parallel data harmonization effort– Facilitates the exchange of information between government agencies that

regulate international trade

• National Information Exchange Model (NIEM)– NIEM 0.2 Pilot– New International Trade domain

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Information Sharing

ACELDMISSs

NIEM

PGADEs

WCODM

ITDSSDS

New Acronyms:• Information Sharing Stakeholders (ISSs)• International Trade Data Set (ITDS) Standard Data Set (SDS)• Participating Government Agency (PGA) Data Elements (DEs)• World Customs Organization (WCO)• National Information Exchange Model (NIEM)

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Benefits

• Traceability of WCO and PGA synonyms to ACE LDM attributes to ACE Release PDM attributes

• Identification of all ACE information-sharing stakeholders, including those PGAs participating in ITDS, and the definition of Communities of Interest (COIs)

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Requirements

ACELDM

ACERequire-

ment

ACERelease

PDM

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Benefits

• Traceability of requirements to ACE releases

• Confirm scope of release implementation for data (and process)

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Data Transition

• Associate source system data structure to target ACE Release data structure

• Use ACE LDM as common denominator

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Data Transition

ACELDM

ACERelease

PDM

SourceSystem

PDM

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Benefits

• Ensure transition of data to same logical concept

• Reduced complexity of mapping effort; map each source system data structure once to ACE LDM regardless of how many ACE releases are involved

• Same principle applies for one-way data conversion or ongoing data exchange. Target data structure can be a PDM, LDM, COTS, Interface parameter, etc.

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Data Transition – Data Quality

ACELDM

ACERelease

PDM

SourceSystem

PDM

BusinessRule

QualityObjective

QualityAssess-

ment

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The Big Picture: Realizing the Dream

NIEM

PGADEs

WCODM

ITDSSDS

NIEM

PGADEs

WCODM

ITDSSDS

CBPECDM

DHSCDM

CBPECDM

DHSCDM

ACELDM

ACERelease

PDM

SourceSystemPDM

ACELDM

ACERelease

PDM

SourceSystemPDM

ACEConOps

ACEBPA

ACERequire-

ment

ISSs

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LDM Role Extension

• Uses the ACE LDM a a fulcrum to to support– Information sharing– Data Transition– Requirements Traceability

in addition to more traditional role of depicting business data requirements and driving physical database design

• ACE LDM moves from an architecture artifact to an active, integral role in the management of information in the CBP enterprise

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Technical Implementation

• Most links are documented in Telelogic’s System Architect (SA); Business Rules, Quality Objectives and Assessments are in MS Access

• Added new SA Definition Types:– Business Organization– Validation Reference

– ConOps Scenario Step– Business Process Definition– Use Case– EBPA Process– ECDM Conceptual Entity

– PGA Alias– …

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What’s Next

TBD, but could include:

• NIEM Mapping for full ACE LDM content

• Additional taxonomies to support information sharing at a federal level

• Leverage ACE LDM for Data Governance activities such as definition of data stewards and owners, data security and privacy requirements, data retention requirements, etc.

• Limited only by our imagination….

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Questions?

Deborah L. BrooksPrincipal TechnologistCairo CorporationPhone: 703 667-4920E-mail: dbrooks@cairocorp.com