Future-First

Overview
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has launched the "Future-First" initiative that is reflected in The Common Approach to Federal Enterprise Architecture ("Common Approach") which will help the Federal Government begin to continuously develop business and technology architectures that better prepare agencies for the future.

Future-First is a set of principles for agencies to use when implementing the Common Approach and embarking on planning, development, and modernization efforts. OMB has identified an initial set of principles that will evolve as use of the Common Approach advances across Federal Agencies. Each IT shared service offering must have a business and technology architecture that fits the Agency's operating model, supports Future-First principles, and conforms with Federal law and guidance. Future-First architectural design principles are summarized as follows:


 * Multiple consumers for each service;
 * Modular development (big-to-little) of re-usable components (little-to-big);
 * Process standardization, minimal customization;
 * Web-based solutions with standardized application interfaces;
 * Object reuse, machine-readable data, standard data formats (e.g., XML, semantic RDF);
 * Cloud-based application hosting and virtualization of servers;
 * Security and privacy controls, continuous monitoring of systems and services;
 * Configuration management and version control for systems and services.

Source

 * Federal Information Technology Shared Services Strategy, at 11.