Government Application Rationalization Playbook implemented in Alfabet

Join our recording from the 2021 Federal Data Strategy Conference hosted by Digital Government Institute (DGI) with Software AG Government Solutions’ Mark Steinbacher and you will see how collaborating with EA significantly increases the likelihood of a successful Data Strategy realization.

Organizations across industries and the government have recognized that information is the “life-blood” of a successful enterprise and are mobilizing to truly treat data as an asset to ensure that success. Most organizations begin by defining a Data Strategy (DS) and then initiating organizational and operational change efforts to change the behavior toward their data. This is often where challenges surface due to not accounting for the myriad perspectives and dimensions that make up the complex enterprise eco-system. This is where Enterprise Architecture (EA) can help.

Some highlights of the webinar include:
• The role and purpose of a Data Strategy
• How a Data Strategy aligns to the EA mission
• How collaborating with EA yields benefits
• How NOT collaborating with EA could result in higher costs and lower realization success

Discover how to incorporate your existing applications into modern enterprise landscape through no code/low code integration. This will make your IT enterprise more agile and able to quickly respond to new business requirements.

Join this webinar to learn:
• How to quickly and easily turn key legacy business functions into callable services
• How to integrate legacy applications at the program, data, and session levels
• How to leverage new technologies to modernize and expand your legacy applications.

Join our replay from the 2021 EA Conference hosted by Digital Government Institute (DGI) with Software AG Government Solutions’ Jeff Chancellor and you will learn how to ask the right questions to get the best value from your EA Solution.

Many EA solutions have been developed over the years, and it may surprise you that many are still following the approach of loading data and then generating a flurry of reports, often only a few columns different or the sorting parameters different. This just promotes what can be called “report sprawl.”

Modern EA tools need to be data driven, and using strategic questions enables executives and planning teams helps guide the data collection activities by understanding what data is required to answer the questions. Being data driven is a key differentiator that helps elevate successful EA teams because they anticipate the questions, or even better, they have the questions built into their EA tool. In a survey of over 300 executives, 45 questions were the most common across the survey participants, and are now part of an EA Accelerator configuration from Software AG Government Solutions. Not only do these questions present the right answers, it support drill-down into the details to see the data that answers the questions. Using a layered construct enables organizations to develop their own questions and surface them to the appropriate users. This enables easier accessibility for executives to ask their questions from the platform rather than people, and they get the immediate benefit and insight to make better decisions for the future.

Adabas Encryption for z/OS will encrypt your Adabas data-at-rest by utilizing IBM’s z/OS Pervasive Encryption; making the Adabas data unusable to unauthorized users/attackers outside of the mainframe environment. Adabas Encryption for z/OS together with hardware encryption and proper use of mainframe security packages (RACF, ACF2, Top Secret) will close security holes in your mainframe. This encryption of data-at-rest can be performed with NO application changes.

Join this webinar to learn:
• What are the security risks facing today’s mainframe in the Digital Enterprise?
• Why do you need Adabas encryption?
• Difference between Adabas encryption and hardware/disk storage encryption

Keeping security up to date with the most current technologies is only part of the battle. According to IBM, 60% of all attacks were carried out by insiders where 75% involved malicious actions and 25% was careless by the insider. Adabas Auditing for z/OS is a powerful, secure, easy to use web-based tool that helps your organization stay fully compliant with ever-growing regulations. Maintain full visibility into your Adabas activity while enhancing cybersecurity efforts by detecting unauthorized access.

See how government agencies are leveraging existing assets and utilizing new capabilities to modernize applications quickly in a cost effective manner, avoiding risky rip and replace projects.

In most organizations you will often find a plethora of Management Disciplines – Data Management, Enterprise Architecture Management, Business Process Management, etc. – all working diligently to oversee different aspects of the enterprise. But is the organization really getting the most out of them? Sometimes not, and this webinar will present what is often the key stumbling block for achieving a high performing organization, that is, inter-discipline communication, and proffer an approach for bringing all the disciplines together to enable efficient and effective information sharing.

Some of the highlights that will be discussed include:
• How the “law of unintended consequences” can sometimes introduce inefficiencies resulting from seemingly reasonable decisions or even render them ineffective
• How establishing a holistic “Single Pane of Glass” view of the enterprise provides benefits both in operational efficiencies and improved effectiveness of change initiatives
• How a single System of Reference simplifies fulfilling the myriad number of reporting requirements placed upon government organizations through a variety of mandates
• How the collaboration model can easily incorporate all management disciplines, thereby allowing an organization to grow and scale over time

Government systems are in a constant state of change. From new regulations, new ways of interacting, changing employee and constituent expectations, evolving security threats, and for a host of other reasons requires us to change and modernize our technology. Many organizations are starting to embrace the use of APIs and microservices. But only 13% of companies using microservices say their architecture is production-proven for a high quality of service. What’s more, agencies have invested billions of dollars over the last decade creating their existing capabilities. How can an organization leverage their existing investments while delivering the change that is needed, at a faster pace, lower cost, and built-in flexibility? Come hear our guest speaker, Forrester vice president and principal analyst Randy Heffner, along with Chris Borneman, Software AG Government Solutions CTO, as they discuss:
•Why APIs and microservices matter for government
•How the demands of business innovation should guide your API and microservices approach
•The role of product teams and business domains in unified API/microservice design
•What are some of the key elements of an API and microservice platform
•How an API platform can speed your time to value

With the continuous announcements about the deprecation of the Mainframe editors in Natural, the time is drawing near (December 31, 2022). Many Natural Mainframe programmers have yet to accept that the Eclipse IDE will be the new development environment for Natural going forward. This webinar will provide you some demonstration on how to perform the same functions of creating, maintaining, and executing your Natural objects, in the Eclipse environment. Learning a new environment is never easy but we hope this helps.

Attendees can expect to see:
• A brief introduction to Eclipse and the Natural Prospective
• How to import your Natural code into an Eclipse project
• A comparison of the mainframe editors (program editor, map editor, Data area editor) to the Eclipse source area editor environment

Join our IT journey as we share how Software AG Government Solutions assists federal agencies in rationalizing their IT assets while providing a path for the future. In this webinar, we will go over application rationalization in regards to the federal government and what that means for agencies and their application portfolios.

A few key takeaways you will learn from this webinar include:

- An overview of the Federal Application Rationalization Playbook
- An overview of Alfabet, Software AG's FedRAMP-Authorized tool for IT planning, portfolio management
- Alternative Paths through the Rationalization Process
- A demo of Alfabet

Today, more than ever, government agencies need to ensure that money is spent wisely and correctly. Join this webinar and learn how Software AG’s webMethods Integration Platform assists agencies with curtailing waste, fraud, and abuse. Using Unemployment Claims processing as an example, see how existing processes can be quickly and easily adapted to save money and meet ever-changing business demands.

Rationalizing an application portfolio is no longer the realm of elite organizations and it can no longer only be driven by cost conscious CIO’s. The survivability of the enterprise rests in its ability to respond with certainty and agility in a constantly churning environment. Rationalizing your application estate does result in streamlined IT processes and reduced costs. The secret value unleashed in a well-executed application rationalization program is better measured in the elevated conversations it causes between the business and IT organizations, and in its ability to drive radical transformation. A little disruption can go a long way!

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announced its new data strategy in October 2020. In it, the DoD shared its plan to transform into a data-centric organization by using data to help the department fulfill a number of missions. With a focus on API-led hybrid integration, we will address some of the challenges facing the DoD data strategy – accessibility, discoverability, security, and scalability – and discuss the capabilities required for a successful implementation of the DoD Data Strategy.

Join us to learn how to:
• Unlock data from any data source
• Rapidly expose data and services with APIs
• Support a collaborative API lifecycle
• Secure your APIs and implement zero-trust architectures
• Share up-to-date information quickly and reliably with APIs

APIs are a key enabler for modern software companies like Amazon and Netflix. But government agencies are often saddled with legacy systems built without APIs. Some agencies have been able to overcome these limitations to begin to operate with the same speed and agility that modern software companies do. Learn how any agency can create new APIs to gain the flexibility to not only evolve their IT ecosystems, but also to avoid costs.

The US Federal Government published an Application Rationalization Playbook to assist agencies on maximizing their IT investments. The playbook was developed by the Cloud and Infrastructure Community of Practice (C&I CoP) as a practical approach for agencies to get started on their application rationalization journey. The playbook is based on industry best practices and adaptable for ready implementation within COTS Enterprise Architecture tools and IT Portfolio Management solutions.

Software AG Government Solutions uses its Alfabet EA/ITPM solution to organize and rationalize large application portfolios across the US Government and comes configured to support Application Rationalization and Consolidation. Alfabet is easily adjustable via configuration to be tailored to not just the CoP playbook but also further to agency specific assessment and scoring mechanisms.

In this webinar, we will examine the six phases in the playbook and demonstrate how Alfabet supports each phase. As a workflow-enabled, fully integrated repository, Alfabet can incorporate metrics and measures from other systems to provide many perspectives that lead to rationalization activities or projects.

If you are an Application Portfolio Manager or an Enterprise Architect responsible for assessment and scoring for applications, you should plan on attending this webinar.

Government systems are in a constant state of change. From new regulations, new ways of interacting, changing employee and constituent expectations, evolving security threats, and for a host of other reasons requires us to change and modernize our technology. Many organizations are starting to embrace the use of APIs and microservices. But only 13% of companies using microservices say their architecture is production-proven for a high quality of service. What’s more, agencies have invested billions of dollars over the last decade creating their existing capabilities. How can an organization leverage their existing investments while delivering the change that is needed, at a faster pace, lower cost, and built-in flexibility? Come hear our guest speaker, Forrester vice president and principal analyst Randy Heffner, along with Chris Borneman, Software AG Government Solutions CTO, as they discuss:
•Why APIs and microservices matter for government
•How the demands of business innovation should guide your API and microservices approach
•The role of product teams and business domains in unified API/microservice design
•What are some of the key elements of an API and microservice platform
•How an API platform can speed your time to value

Governments are increasingly adopting a more comprehensive enterprise architecture approach for managing their technology assets. Some organizations are pushing further, implementing a "technology business management" platform that brings together every aspect of IT within a unified framework.

Government Technology spoke to Jeff Chancellor, principal systems engineer for Software AG Government Solutions, and David Taylor, vice president of state, local and provincial government solutions for Software AG Government Solutions, and a former agency CIO and state CIO of Florida, about how TBM can make governments more efficient and more effective.