FBI IT Infrastructure for 21st Century Crime, Part 2
FBI IT Infrastructure for 21st Century Crime, Part 2
CIO Zal Azmi Looks Back and Ahead after One Year on the Job
05/06/05
Zal Azmi was putting the finishing touches on his four-year-long IT renovation of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys in 2003 when FBI Director Robert S. Mueller hand picked him to help transform technology in the FBI. Azmi was appointed CIO exactly one year ago today. Since then he has redefined the role of his office, introduced a strict business philosophy to management of the Bureau’s IT systems, launched new technologies to help agents in the field, and performed a monumental accounting of just what kinds of technological assets—new and old—the Bureau has to do its job.
Can you tell us about some specific accomplishments of the last year that help working agents and analysts?
Mr. Azmi: Yes, two in particular. Our Investigative Data Warehouse program, which is based on the FBI’s Secure Collaboration Operational Prototype Environment (SCOPE), started as a pilot in January. It’s a set of analytical tools that queries different data sources and provides analysis of the results. We started with 300 users and 12 data sources; now we’re pushing 7,000 users and 50+ data sources. Then, for our Directorate of Intelligence, we created an automated web-based process to write and disseminate intelligence reports. It has really streamlined the process of getting information from the field to Headquarters and then out to the intelligence community. Some other advances include: expanding our connectivity to the intelligence community both at the secret and top secret levels, the deployment of the Public Key Infrastructure that enables users to send and receive encrypted e-mail and will be expanded to include digital signatures; expanding top-secret video conferencing; and enhancements to our fingerprint technology, which increased the accuracy of the system to over 95%.
And the big picture? How does the FBI’s IT infrastructure hold up today?
Mr. Azmi: It holds up well. In the last year, we’ve worked on the Enterprise Architecture and our self assessment shows that we’re at a maturity level 3. Only two government agencies have achieved the highest level—level 5. We’re well on our way to achieve that in ‘06. We also published our first IT Strategic Plan, a technology life-cycle management methodology that has given us credibility with oversight groups like Congress, the Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, and the Government Accountability Office that our IT is on the right track. We’ve also benchmarked ourselves against other agencies. Given those results, I think we’re on track to achieve world-class architecture before the end of ‘06.
When the FBI’s case management system (VCF) was shelved earlier this year, you still asked for an evaluation of its pilot study. Why…and what did you learn?
Mr. Azmi: Simple: to get critical information from it that we could use for the next generation of case management. And, let me tell you, we learned a lot. Director Mueller and I went down to New Orleans and met personally with the users. They told us what they liked, what they didn’t like, and how to improve. We also found unanticipated legal and policy issues in an electronic record environment that didn’t exist in a paper environment. So we got our money’s worth out of the evaluation. Now we’re charting a new course and look forward to publicizing it when it’s ready.
How would you describe your first year on the job?
Mr. Azmi: Challenging, educational, and satisfying. The first challenge was compiling a master systems list—how many systems we have, how many networks, how many databases. And it’s huge—our current portfolio shows that the FBI owns hundreds of these items. We did the same thing with human resources. We wanted to find out how many IT specialists and contractors are in the FBI and where are they sitting. We did the same thing with budgets. Now we have a process that captures all of the IT acquisitions, what they cost, who’s buying them and why and where they are going. My goal is to make the Office of the CIO the centralized provider for information technology. Regardless of where you are, if you need something, you call and you will receive.
Your strategic plan looks ahead to the year 2011. What’s your ultimate goal?
Mr. Azmi: What we’re trying to do is to revamp the entire infrastructure and make it available to everyone. By 2011, we want to support over 50,000 people on all three enclaves (unclassified, secret, top secret) anywhere in the world. We have to do it methodically. We have tactical, operational, mission-oriented needs we need to address immediately, and then we have our strategic objectives. The challenge is to not disconnect one from the other. But in the end, our goal is very simple: IT supports any mission, anywhere, anytime, securely, and reliably.