Federal Cloud Computing Use Case, EPA Enterprise Services, and Actionable Data Publishing

1. Put Your Desktop in the Cloud to Support the Open Government Directive and Data.gov/semantic Tutorial Federal Cloud Computing Use Case, EPA Enterprise Services, and Actionable Data Publishing Brand Niemann Senior Enterprise Architect U.S. EPA April 9, 2010 http://semanticommunity.net/ Note: This is also my 2010 Individual Development Plan.

2. Overview • 1. Background • 1.1 Requirements • 1.2 History • 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.1 Federal Cloud Computing Use Case • 2.2 EPA OEI Enterprise Services • 2.3 Actionable Data Publishing • 3. Suggestions • 4. Questions and Answers

3. 1. Background • 1.1 Requirements: • The Federal Cloud Computing Advisory Committee wants cloud computing use cases. • EPA needs Enterprise Services that use cloud computing. • The Open Government Directive calls for actionable data publishing.

4. 1. Background • 1.2 History: • October 28, 2009: • Federal IT Summit Cloud Computing Panel: EPA work on "a cloud computing desktop" cited as a best practice by Peter Tseronis, Co-Chair, Cloud Computing Advisory Committee. • December 10, 2009: • Data Architecture Subcommittee Meeting with Donna Roy (NIEM) and Jim Hendler (Data-gov Semantic Wiki) and discussions of Data.gov CONOPS and its evolution to the Semantic Web. • December 15, 2009: • Semantic Web Meetup: Party Cloudy with a Chance of Semantics. (Put Your Desktop in the Cloud to Support the Open Government Directive and Data.gov/semantic!). • December 17, 2009: • Federal Cloud Computing Advisory Council Meeting (same as above). • December 24, 2009: • 2010 Office of Environmental Information National Symposium, May 11 – 13, 2010, Proposal for Presentation and Tutorial.

5. 1. Background • 1.2 History (continued): • January 11, 2010: • Open Government Directive Workshop and Government Desktop in the Cloud Breakout Session at the US Department of Transportation at the Direction of the Office of the EPA Administrator and the National Center for Innovation. • January 14-15, 2010: • Federal CIO Council Boot Camp Training, Partnership for Public Service SAGE Program, Washington, DC. My Suggested 2010 Plan for an Open Government Directive Roadmap Using Cloud Computing Desktop / Mobile Apps as a Member of the Federal CIO Council's Best Practice Committee. • January 19-21, 2010: • EPA Enterprise Architecture Strategic Planning Sessions • January 21, 2010: • Put Your Statistical Work in the Cloud in Support of the Open Government Directive and Data.gov/semantic (EPA Statistics Users Group). • January 28, 2010: • Tutorial for the EAWG: Solution Architecture for 2010. • February 4, 2010: • Design Suggestions for EPA’s One Wiki in Support of the EPA OGD Work Group.

6. 1. Background • 1.2 History (continued): • March 3, 2010: • Joint Services / Cloud Computing Session: Semantic Cloud Computing and Linked Open Data Discussion of Three Uses Cases. • March 3rd, 2010: • For Open Government, Technology Is The Least of Your Problems (Gartner Blog Comment). • March 4, 2010: • 2010 Annual Statistical Abstract of the United States: More than 1300 high-value data sets and graphs with standard metadata, and EPA Report on the Environment Indicators: More than 200 high-value data sets and graphs with standard metadata. • March 6, 2010: • Flagship Initiative Pilot Tutorial: EPA Report on the Environment, EPA Wiki and Blog Work Group. • March 13, 2010: • Data Quality Plan Pilot Tutorial: EPA Report on the Environment, Scientific Data Management Workshop Planning Group. • March 19, 2010: • Community Engagement Pilot Tutorial: One EPA: EPA Web Work Group, EPA Wiki and Blog Work Group, and EPA Open Government Directive Work Group • March 27, 2010: • Community Engagement Pilot Tutorial: Enhancing the Flagship Initiative and Data Quality Plan • April 2, 2010: • Wikify Your Best Content in Support of the OGD and Data.gov/semantic: Information Architecture Tutorial

7. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.1 Federal Cloud Computing Use Case: • Agency Name: US EPA • Project Name: Put Your Desktop in the Cloud to Support the Open Government Directive and Data.gov/semantic • Version Number: 1 • Primary Point of Contact: • Name: Brand Niemann • Title: Senior Enterprise Architect • Email: niemann.brand@epa.gov • Telephone: 202-564-9491

8. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.1 Federal Cloud Computing Use Case: • Business Need: • Provide a detailed description of the business need/performance gap that this project is addressing. • Cloud Services Delivery and Deployment Model: • Please select the appropriate cloud service delivery and deployment model of your cloud computing solution: • Public Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) • Public Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) • Public Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) • Community (Government Dedicated) SaaS – This includes Private clouds • Community (Government Dedicated) PaaS – This includes Private clouds • Community (Government Dedicated) IaaS – This includes Private clouds Note: Please use the NIST definition of cloud computing to identify the cloud delivery and deployment model.

9. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.1 Federal Cloud Computing Use Case • Description: • Provide an overview of your cloud computing solution, including: • Services provided • Functionality • Technology • Vendor specification • Life Cycle Phases: • Conceptual Planning: Date Range (Month/FY) • Requirements: Date Range (Month/FY) • Design and Testing: Date Range (Month/FY) • Implementation: Date Range (Month/FY) • Operations and Maintenance: Date Range (Month/FY)

10. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.1 Federal Cloud Computing Use Case • Cost Savings/Avoidance: • Provide cost savings or cost avoidance figures that have resulted from deploying this solution. If possible, please list anticipated cost savings (from your cost benefit analysis). • Qualitative Benefits: • Please describe any qualitative benefits – such as improved performance or enhanced technology. • Lessons Learned: • Provide an overview of the best practices and lessons learned from deploying this solution. These notes will be shared with other agencies seeking to deploy similar solutions.

11. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.1 Federal Cloud Computing Use Case: • Business Need and Cloud Services Delivery and Deployment Model: • This solution meets all five essential characteristics, three service models, and four deployment models. • Description (see next slide): • A web-services platform with a Wiki interface using a Web-oriented Architecture (WoA) implemented in open source software provided by MindTouch using the Amazon Cloud that supports statelessness, low coupling, modularity, and semantic interoperability. • Life Cycle Phase: • All phases handled by MindTouch/Amazon with users providing suggestions to the open source development community.

12. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop Deki Wiki Cloud Deki Wiki Platform

13. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.1 Federal Cloud Computing Use Case • Cost Savings/Avoidance: • This was done at no cost because the piloting was started two years ago when the Deki Wiki Cloud Platform was free. See current MindTouch Cloud offering. • Qualitative Benefits: • This allowed completion of the Open Government Directive requirements well before the deadlines and for the production of a Data.gov/semantic example. • Lessons Learned: • I would like to see us pilot having government employees “put their desktop in the cloud” as not only a way to save infrastructure costs and increase collaboration, but also a way to preserve the artifacts of their career so when they retire the people have a record!

14. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.2 EPA OEI Enterprise Services: • Working Definition (April 7, 2010, Draft): • Enterprise Services are sets of processes and tools defined by a governance framework and used to assist EPA Programs in developing and deploying customized information technology capabilities to meet particular business needs. Although the set of processes and tools within a particular Enterprise Service may vary based on the business need, use of these services in a centralized and coordinated way helps to ensure Agency IT resources are used efficiently and users benefit from existing infrastructure investments. • In many cases business needs may be met by a service defined directly by a set of tools. In other cases more complicated business needs may require a group of services. In such cases these services will be grouped into a Service Category and the Service Category will have a clearly defined set of processes and tools, and a governance framework that describes these sub-services and their use.

15. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.2 EPA OEI Enterprise Services: • Preliminary List of Services (April 7, 2010, Draft): • Items that seemed related have been grouped on separate slides. • The “bullets” denotes a service, and the “dashes” denotes a tool or topic that supports a particular service. Items with a “>>” are sub-topics or tools that further describe a particular tool or set of tools. • Items in italics are services that will likely not be included in the Action Planning process but have been listed to provide a more complete catalog of services. • Service owners are identified in [brackets]. • Repurposing into the Deki Wiki are shown in (parentheses).

16. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.2 EPA OEI Enterprise Services: • Preliminary List of Services (April 7, 2010, Draft): • Information and Data Collection [Chuck Freeman] • CDX • Portal • Data Acquisition [Lee Kyle] • ICR Independent Review and Guidance [Pat Grimm]

17. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.2 EPA OEI Enterprise Services: • Preliminary List of Services (April 7, 2010, Draft) (continued): • Content Management [Erin Collard] (1) • ECMS • WebCMS • Data Management • Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) • Database Services • Electronic QA tools • Geo Services (geographic data about facilities, etc) • Metadata Management Services [John Harman] (2) • Facility Registries • RCS (marketing opportunity) • Substance Registry • Data Registry • Terminology Services • READ system inventory • Geospatial Data Gateway (GDG) • Records Management [John Ellis] • ECMS

18. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.2 EPA OEI Enterprise Services: • Preliminary List of Services (April 7, 2010, Draft) (continued): • Public Access Services [OIAA] • Envirofacts • MyEnvironment • EPA.gov (3) • Trusted Partner Information Sharing Services [OIAA] • CDX • eRulemaking (4) • Regs.gov • Docket Services • Web Feeds (RSS) • Electronic Reporting Services • FOIA Independent Review and Guidance

19. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.2 EPA OEI Enterprise Services: • Preliminary List of Services (April 7, 2010, Draft) (continued): • Analytic Services (crosses a number of service categories) (5) • Business Intelligence • Geo Services (geographic analytical tools)

20. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.2 EPA OEI Enterprise Services: • Preliminary List of Services (April 7, 2010, Draft) (continued): • Communication Services [Robin Gonzalez/Johnny Davis] • Email & Instant Messaging • Portal (Collaboration and Employee) • Conferencing • Collaboration Tools (6) • Blogs • Wikis • Professional Networking • Social Networking • Network and Telecommunication Services [Robin Gonzalez/Johnny Davis]

21. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.2 EPA OEI Enterprise Services: • Preliminary List of Services (April 7, 2010, Draft) (continued): • Application Support Services [Robin Gonzalez] • Hosting [Robin Gonzalez] • Data storage • Desktop Services [Johnny Davis] • Quality Assurance Services [Jeff Worthington] • Privacy [Deborah Williams] • Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) Services (7)

22. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.2 EPA OEI Enterprise Services: • Repurposing into the Deki Wiki: • (1) http://epa.wik.is • (2) http://epadata.wik.is • (3) http://epa.wik.is • (4) http://epaerulemaking.wik.is • (5) http://epadata.wik.is • (6) http://epa.wik.is • (7) http://federalsoa.wik.is

23. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.2 EPA OEI Enterprise Services: • My Comments (April 7, 2010): • First, I think we should be focused on EPA Enterprise Services, not just OEI Enterprise Services, especially if there is a reorganization of OEI back into EPA. • Second, I think that we should be focused on a state-or-the-art, open source, platform that provides web-services in the cloud so that all of our best information is freed from siloed systems that are difficult to evolve to agile and extensible web-services. For example, David Eng and his team are pursuing this for the EPA Enterprise with the One Wiki project.

24. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.2 EPA OEI Enterprise Services: • My Comments (April 7, 2010) (continued): • Thirdly, my specific answers are as follows: • As service users, what elements describing each service (e.g. products, procedures, specifications) would be most helpful as you are trying to decide whether and how to use one of the Enterprise Services? • We should not have to decide what Enterprise Service to use - we should just ask a question about the information we need and get the result without wasting time looking in every siloed system with different access rights, structure, etc. for example, I just learned that you cannot really find out what is in the ESC unless you are invited to join each project, but how would you know what project you would like to join without some description (beyond the title) being available in the first place! A true catch 22. • Are there common questions that you have, or things that you find challenging, about using the current suite of Enterprise Services? • They need to address the two key needs: Desktop and Search in the Cloud as I stressed in my briefing to the EAWG last August. I am encouraged that NCC is testing the Google search appliance for possible replacement of the current search tool.

25. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.2 EPA OEI Enterprise Services: • My Comments (April 7, 2010) (continued): • Thirdly, my specific answers are as follows (continued): • When and in what format do you think this descriptive information would be most helpful? When and in what format do you think this descriptive information would be most helpful? • Our best information should be repurposed now into at least an open standard format (e.g. XML) for reuse across multiple web-services and an open standard format (e.g., RDF) for agile linking across Linked Open Data stores on the Web. See my tutorials for best practice EPA and interagency examples. • How can the Enterprise Architecture Working Group help shape the effort? • I have recently prepared a series of tutorials with pilot examples on how to do this that I could provide if there is real interest like I have done before.

26. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.3 Actionable Data Publishing: • OMB – agencies need to move towards “self-actuating data sets”: • Self-actuating data sets (e.g. RDF) • W3C egov Government Linked Demo Projects: • Suggest catalogs and datasets that are candidates for DCAT and OPM and other vocabularies and suggesting desired linkages and how to leverage VOID. • Propose existing published open gov data for interlinking and any required means of achieving that. • Determine what work is demonstrative of principles or best practices relevant to open gov linked data and collateral authors/owners. • For all, describe a 'user story' exercising these that can be used as an input to communicate the work of this project. • Suggested Demos: • Google for: epaontology wetlands • Search within http://epaontology.wik.is/ for: wetlands • Search at http://www.sdi.gov for: wetlands • Suggested User Story: • Linked Data on the Web (LDOW2010), Raleigh, NC, April 27, 2010. • The Third International Provenance and Annotation Workshop, Troy, NY, June 15-16, 2010.

27. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop • 2.3 Actionable Data Publishing: • EPA’s Environmental Statistics Training on Interpretation of Environmental Data: • Data Quality is especially important to using the Data.gov/semantic for Linked Open Data. • Need to know the context, provenance, and quality of distributed data sets before linking them. • EPA’s 2008 Report on the Environment as a Data.gov/semantic Product: • The best EPA content in the best cloud platform for semantic data publishing. • Provides the context, provenance, and quality for each environmental indicator and its data set (s).

28. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop2.3 Actionable Data Publishing Interpretation of Environmental Data Spreadsheets Interpretation of Environmental Data Wiki Page

29. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop2.3 Actionable Data Publishing Interactive Interface Non-Interactive Interface Interpretation of Environmental Data Spotfire PC Interpretation of Environmental Spotfire Web

30. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop2.3 Actionable Data Publishing ROE Air Indicators Spreadsheets ROE Air Indicators Wiki Pages

31. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop2.3 Actionable Data Publishing Non-Interactive Interface Interactive Interface ROE Air Indicators in Spotfire PC ROE Air Indicators in Spotfire Web

32. 2. Plan for Cloud Desktop2.3 Actionable Data Publishing • Interpretation of Environmental Data Spreadsheets: • http://epadata.wik.is/@api/deki/files/160/=InterpretationofEnvironmentalData.xls • Interpretation of Environmental Data Wiki Page: • http://epadata.wik.is/Statistics_Users_Group/Interpretation_of_Environmental_Data • Interpretation of Environmental Data Spotfire Web: • http://semanticommunity.net/EPAStatistics/IntrepretationofEnvironmentalData-Spotfire.html • Note: Need to use Spotfire Web Player to make interactive on the Web: • http://spotfire.tibco.com/products/web-player/interactive-dashboards.aspx • 2008 ROE Air Indicators Spreadsheets: • http://epaontology.wik.is/@api/deki/files/8/=ROE2008Air.xls • 2008 ROE Air Indicators Wiki Pages: • http://epaontology.wik.is/2_Air • 2008 ROE Air Indicators Spotfire Web: • http://semanticommunity.net/EPAStatistics/ROEAirIndicators-Spotfire.html • Note: Need to use Spotfire Web Player to make interactive on the Web: • http://spotfire.tibco.com/products/web-player/interactive-dashboards.aspx

33. 3. Suggestions • The Federal Cloud Computing Advisory Committee wants cloud computing use cases: • Submit the case. • EPA needs Enterprise Services that use cloud computing: • Continue to create state-of-the-art cloud services for the EPA Enterprise. • The Open Government Directive calls for actionable data publishing: • Continue to do actionable data publishing of EPA data with context, provenance, and quality information.

34. 4. Questions and Answers