eGovernment Architecture

eGovernment should not only optimise the relationship between citizens and administration via the internet. It should also encompass the reciprocal relationships between citizens, commercial enterprise, non profit institutions, politics, government and public administration.

In order to optimise these interactions and make them as efficient and durable as possible, various types of applications and generations of ICT that interconnect in existing work routines and decision making processes must be integrated into an architecture.

Fraunhofer FOKUS is developing proposals for this type of eGovernment architecture. We delineate the logical and physical alignment of the basic elements as well as the relationships between them. We also present various views on the system and make it possible for those in charge of eGovernment, politicians and citizens to understand the system with a suitable level of abstraction and to develop a common vision for eGovernment.

Process Orientation, Open Standards and Interfaces

Essential architectural elements in the federal eGovernment architecture include:

• Open standards

• Data interfaces based on XML (XöV)

• Reviewing and simplifying existing processes when modernising public administration

• Linking singular components and communication between components using Web Services or java based methods

Federal eGovernment architecture is defined according to SAGA (Standards and Architectures for eGovernment Applications) standards.

Thus different platforms must be able to work together based on open standards and open interfaces and basic services and applications must be able to be easily integrated.

Fraunhofer Institute FOKUS is following these models in order to modernise public administration. Solutions in this sphere will be developed based on process orientation,  interoperability, open standards, and services oriented architectures.