IT systems are rather like LEGO bricks. At first glance, they do all match, but in the end only those attain a stable and functional construction that put the single parts together with the help of a logical construction plan.

On behalf of the Coordination and Information Center of the Federal Government for Information Technology in Administration - Koordinierungs- und Beratungsstelle der Bundesregierung für Informationstechnik in der Bundesverwaltung (German abbr. KBSt) ]init[ therefore developed in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering (German abbr. ISST) a standard cooperation plan for the build-up of Federal IT systems: the IT architecture concept.

The draft paper provides persons in charge with practical recommendations for the technical implementation of IT projects and decision-making support for the design of the software architecture. With the publishing of an IT architecture concept, KBSt aims to lay the foundation for a modern and flexible IT infrastructure of the federal administration that can be operated economically in the specialized applications and central services. To this purpose, it explains different standards of architectures and gives case related help to ease the decision-taking about the structure of concrete projects. This creates re-usable, compatible, and easy-to-integrate services and components. Finally, the draft paper provides guidelines for a consecutive introduction of service-oriented architectures in authority IT infrastructures.

The result: the requirements for the interoperability, expandability, scalability, and re-usability of IT applications are already created in the concept design stage promoting the economical use of information technology in the Federal Administration.

press release, 17th October 2007