You can use the Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF)
feature to describe the architecture of a complex system. The DoDAF feature
uses the Unified Modeling Language (UML) as a base to represent a system's
structure in visual, textual, and tabular formats.
DoDAF architectural descriptions
A DoDAF architectural
description of a system comprises a set of descriptions, or views, that are
linked to each other, and that each contain information about the system from
a particular perspective. In DoDAF, these perspectives are called products.
DoDAF
classifies products according to their specific architectural attributes in
three views: the Operational View (OV), the Systems View (SV), and the Technical
Standards View (TV). Certain aspects of a system's architecture are best described
by all three views. The DoDAF combines overview and summary information, and
definitions of DoDAF product terminology in a view called All Views (AV).
- Operational View (OV)
- The Operational View describes all aspects of Department of Defense (DoD)
functions, including war-fighting and business missions. Such aspects include
the structure and behavior of the components that make up an operational environment,
their relationships and dependencies, tasks and activities, operational elements
(nodes), and the type and frequency of information exchanges and flows between
nodes.
- Systems View (SV)
- The Systems View describes the internal structure and behavior of components
that support DoD functions. This view also describes the relationships between
system resources and the Operational View.
- Technical Standards View (TV)
- The Technical Standards View describes the standards and rules that govern
the organization, interaction, and dependencies between existing and future
states of the systems that the Systems View describes.
- All Views (AV)
- The All Views products provide information that applies to the entire
architecture description of an operational environment. These views do not
provide one perspective of the system, but describe information such as the
scope, purpose, intended use, mission objectives, and strategies of the operational
environment, and a dictionary of terms.
DoDAF syntax and semantics
DoDAF is designed to
enable you to describe the structure of, and the relationships between, the
components of an operational environment. To do this, DoDAF defines elements
such as nodes, needlines, services, and information exchanges. It then provides
rules that you use to model an operational environment to demonstrate how
nodes co-operate and interact with each other to meet a mission objective.
- Nodes
- A node represents a logical or physical element in an architecture description
of an operational environment that produces, consumes, or processes data.
Nodes can be soldiers, sailors, aircrew, civilian workers, systems, or subsystems
that are inside or outside the operational environment, and that interact
with other elements in the environment.
- Needlines
- Needlines are the DoDAF equivalent of UML dependencies and relationships
and they describe how nodes interact with each other. Needlines express the
requirement by one node for services or information from other nodes, so they
represent dependencies and the logical flow of information.
- Services
- A service is an operational capability that is transferred between nodes.
The transfer of capabilities between nodes implies the transfer of information.
- Information exchanges
- An information exchange is a collection of information characteristics,
such as timeliness and quality, and requirements that govern how information
is gathered, shared, and used.