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Enterprise Mobility
Anytime, Anywhere, Any device – those words succinctly describe the concept of mobility. VA’s IT vision depicts a future in which our Veterans, beneficiaries and the VA’s workforce can virtually access digital information and services anywhere, anytime, on any device.
Broadly defined, mobility involves the collective set of people, processes, and technology associated with the increased availability of mobile devices, wireless networks, and information access services applicable to mobile computing within a business environment. Mobile technology continues to advance at a rapid pace.
Scope
Customer DemandAmerica’s appetite for mobile devices and applications is exploding. VA’s Mobile and Security Technology in the Office of IT Operations and Services (ITOPS), formerly SDE, estimates approximately 70,000 new mobile devices will be added to the VA network in the next two years. By the end of 2017, Gartner, Inc, predicts that market demand for mobile app development services will grow at least five times faster than internal IT organizations’ capacity to deliver them.
VA has been rapidly developing new and useful mobile applications that make it easier and more convenient for Veterans to find information, schedule appointments and access web-enabled applications and virtual VA services such as telehealth.
VA is also deploying Enterprise Shared Services (ESS) to support Veteran-facing applications, and VA will expand on them in the next three years. However, VA’s current mobile infrastructures cannot support the Agency’s future mobility needs and are not designed and managed at the enterprise-level. Nor are they capable of supplying the robust capabilities required to provide the “Veterans Experience” and “Employee Experience” envisioned by the MyVA Initiative. The VA Domain specific infrastructures, standards, data, and application interfaces limit a mobile enterprise environment.
Current VA mobility limitations are:
- Lack of scalable infrastructure: Current systems can only support 3,500 concurrent users and needs the ability to scale out to support many more users accessing enterprise resources.
- Mobile security: Poor authentication experience and lack of simple and secure connectivity are significant barriers of mobile application adoption.
- Redundant technologies: VA has invested in redundant technology as departments are working in silos towards their mobile initiatives.
- Inefficient Mobile Application Development Lifecycle: The complexity of systems and the lack of a robust testing capability impact current compliance turn-around times.
- Non-standard Mobile Application Maintenance: Released mobile applications have a three-month support period after which they become the responsibility of the business owner.
- Absence of 508 compliant environments.
As VA grows its mobility capabilities to meet customer demand and improve technical capabilities, it must ensure that solution designs and mobile infrastructure are consistent with VA’s Mobility Strategy, mobility standards in the VA EA Enterprise Technical Architecture and mobility-related Enterprise design patterns.
Usage
Mobility-Related Enterprise Design PatternsMobility Enterprise Design Patterns, along with other Enterprise Design Patterns, offer a best practices approach in addressing recurring IT technical challenges, eliminating duplicative capabilities and functionality, and reducing the total lifecycle cost of IT.
VA currently has four categories of Mobility-related Enterprise Design Patterns that examine the current environment from a mobility perspective and identify relevant challenges related to the user experience, security, and standardization of staff access that must be considered by solution developers and platform providers. Specifically:
- Mobile Architecture: While VA has established mobile computing platforms, the architecture is currently not extendible throughout the enterprise. Consequently, there are limits to supplying the required support level of service to Veterans and VA staff. Enterprise Design Pattern analysis points to selected issues that severely impact the Veteran’s user experience.
- Mobile Veteran-facing Application Security: A primary goal of VA is to ensure that appropriate user-level and device-level security measures are implemented to protect VA’s data, systems, and infrastructure. The current state of mobile security for Veteran Facing Mobile Applications involves discussion around how VA will be able to communicate through secure applications.
- Staff-facing Mobile Devices and Applications: As new mobile technologies become available, VA requires standardized approaches to regulating staff and contractor access to enterprise resources. Four critical issues emerge for staff-facing mobile devices and applications.
Future Enhancements
VA’s future-state IT vision supports consistent implementation of mobile computing solutions throughout all lines of business. VA staff and Veterans will be able to use any approved device, whether hardwired into VA’s network or not, to access government information anytime, anywhere. This vision is expressed in the Mobility Enterprise Design Pattern documents.
Ultimately, the VA IT vision set out and describes a future mobile environment where Veterans have convenient access to information that will enrich their lives. VA’s workforce will become more efficient, and the improved interaction between VA community, providers, and stakeholders will make the anytime, anywhere, any device goal attainable.
