Integrating into Your
IT Environment

EHRI acknowledges the technological concerns about topics such as security, resource impact, and capacity consideration. The EHRI PMO is available to work with agency IT teams to ensure successful implementations.

Following are answers to frequently asked questions from the IT community:

• How does eOPF interface with our existing infrastructure and firewall?
  • Each PC used to access the EHRI eOPF solution must have Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6.0 or higher, Adobe Acrobat Reader version 6.01 or higher and JavaScript enabled. eOPF sessions are Secure Socket Layer (SSL) sessions. Both Single Sign On and eAuthentication initiatives are supported.

• How do we know the EHRI software contains the security levels necessary to protect my agency's data?
  • The EHRI Program Management Office is responsible for ensuring an adequate level of protection and security to all EHRI systems. EHRI systems include the major applications of eHR (Data Warehouse) and eOPF, their General Support Systems (GSS), and all associated development and test environments. Using Federal Information Processing Standards 199 (FIPS 199) Standards for Security Categorization of Federal Information and Information Systems, the EHRI Systems have been classified in the following manner:

     

    FIPS 199 Standard	Categorization
    Confidentiality	High
    Integrity	High
    Availability	Moderate
    Overall EHRI System	High

    The requisite level of protection and security is accomplished through an appropriate mix of technical, administrative, and managerial security controls including written guidance.

• How do we know that eOPF is capable of handling my agency's files?
  • eOPF capacity was stressed and measured using an independent testing service. The service used automated testing functionality to incrementally increase the number of simultaneous eOPF users. The conclusions indicate the eOPF application, the Oracle database, and the network appliances are fully scalable.

• How reliable and upgradeable is the solution?
  • The eOPF application is configured with sufficient redundancy to achieve 99.95% availability, not including planned maintenance windows. The underlying operating system and third-party software are maintained within the manufacturer's software support windows. New eOPF requirements are developed and prioritized with input and support of the eOPF agency-user community. As a general rule, one major eOPF software release is scheduled per year. eOPF application software maintenance is applied on an as-needed basis. Vulnerability maintenance for Windows is applied monthly, for UNIX and Oracle as required, typically on a quarterly basis. eOPF application vulnerability maintenance is applied immediately.

• How much training is needed to understand and support deployment?
  • The eOPF solution is intuitive for both the HR community and employees. In general, members of the agency implementation team learn the system quickly, and become strong advocates for eOPF deployment. The EHRI PMO provides a variety of live training options, such as a two-day "train-the-trainer" series and targeted training classes for HR specialists and administrators. Additionally, there are several web-based training modules in development for eOPF Basic Users, HR specialists and administrators. These showcase the benefits of eOPF in an accessible and easy-to-use tool.

• How are new releases and product updates managed?
  • OPM performs an initial User Acceptance Test (UAT) for any software releases, and upon successful completion of the UAT, the new software is installed in the OPM Quality Assurance (QA) environment which is identical to the production environment. Further testing is conducted to ensure there are no environmental problems introduced by the new software. Next, the software is migrated to the training environment, which is a copy of a production instance. The software in the training environment is available for testing by the user community. A schedule for agency upgrades is developed in collaboration with the agencies. Although every effort is made to accommodate agency scheduling goals, there are technical situations that periodically require OPM to mandate certain migration dates.

New documentation and user guides are provided to each agency to assist with the transition to a new release or upgrade.