The State of Maryland began its Enterprise Architecture (EA) Program in 2004 by initiating the Maryland Technical Architecture Framework (MTAF) Project.
The State's vision is for the EA Program to enable efficient business processes and information access by providing the necessary guidelines, frameworks, and standards to build the most efficient, most effective architecture possible within time and funding limits.
The State's EA strives to provide a "big picture" perspective of IT resources and show the alignment of those resources to the State's strategic plans. Using the EA, State Agencies can make informed IT decisions that are in the State's best interest.
Maryland's EA can provide the following benefits:
- Manage Information Technology (IT) change;
- Improve IT investment decisions;
- Improve communication and collaboration;
- Reduce system diversity;
- Improve interoperability;
- Improve utilization of resources;
- Simplify procedures, and
- Accelerate application development.