Executive Summary

Executive Summary

Introduction

MOD’s adoption of Network Enabled Capability (NEC) as its means of integrating existing capabilities into a coherent system of systems is an ambitious exercise in managing both complexity and change throughout the enterprise. Modern warfare is fast changing and the systems that technology is now making available are in themselves faster, more complex and more adaptable than ever before. The combination and orchestration of these systems in concert with operational planning introduces a level of complexity never before experienced in the Ministry of Defence.

MODAF is an essential component of NEC (or more generally, network based enterprise management) for the following reasons;

Specifically, MODAF enables collaborative architecture development.

It should be recognised however that MODAF is an Enterprise Architecture Framework – it is not itself an architecture. One implication of this is that MODAF needs to be associated with a knowledge management approach, supported by governance, both of the framework and the data.

Architecture Perspectives

MODAF has been designed to meet the specific business and operational needs of the MOD. It defines a way of representing an Enterprise Architecture which enables stakeholders to focus in on specific areas of interests in the enterprise, whilst retaining sight of the “big picture”. To assist decision-makers, MODAF provides the means of abstracting essential information from the underlying complexity and presenting it in a way that maintains coherence and consistency. One of the principal objectives is to present this information in a way that is understandable to the many stakeholder communities involved in developing, delivering and sustaining capability through life. It does so by splitting the problem space into manageable pieces – defined in the framework as “Views”. The views are categorised under Viewpoints by their perspective (e.g. operational, acquisition, etc.).

Each View has a particular purpose, and usually presents:

However, it should be emphasised that MODAF is fundamentally about creating a coherent model of the enterprise to enable effective decision making. We must avoid the presentational aspects of the framework overemphasising the pictorial presenattion of views at the expense of the underlying model.

Users and Benefits

MODAF has been developed to provide an Enterprise Architecture approach in support of a wide number of communities across MOD and assist them in conducting their day-to-day business. Although there is strong support for operational processes and acquisition of capability to support these, MODAF is equally applicable to the business space, operational analysis, planning and all other aspects of the MOD enterprise and other organisations that interface with it, such as coalition partners and its supply chain.

MODAF architectures are an essential source for processes to deliver benefits from:

In addition, MODAF has Through Life relevance, addressing;

Framework Definition

MODAF has been developed from the US Department of Defense Architectural Framework (DoDAF). MODAF keeps compatibility with the core DoDAF viewpoints in order to facilitate exchange of architectural information with the US, for example in conducting international interoperability analyses. However, MODAF v1.2 has supplemented DoDAF with three new viewpoints that better support MOD processes and lifecycles. Therefore, MODAF consists of Seven Viewpoints as shown below – these cover all of the main perspectives and dimension that are required in order to conduct the core MOD processes around acquisition, sustainment and operations.

The new elements of MODAF v1.1 that are not included in DoDAF are the Strategic and Acquisition Viewpoints. These have been added to MODAF in order to better contribute to MOD processes and lifecycles, specifically the analysis of the strategic issues and dependencies across the entire portfolio of military capabilities. The documentation contains more details of the comparison between MODAF and DoDAF

In MODAF v1.2, Service views have also been added to support the development of Service Orientated Architectures (SOA)

The seven MODAF Viewpoints are not separate models of different things but are a means of viewing the same problem from different architectural perspectives – for instance, that of the operational user, the policy setter, or the system architect. This is illustrated below. The architectural model is contained within the cube and the different faces of the cube provide different perspectives represented by the MODAF viewpoints – in this case operational, system and strategic. Furthermore, there are a number of separate openings on each face of the cube that represent the number of different views available within each MODAF viewpoint.

MODAF Enablers

Coherence is a critical issue for both the development and correct use of MODAF. The Framework is therefore underpinned by a set of enablers as detailed below:

Documentation Suite

This executive summary forms part of the overall suite for MODAF Version 1.2 documentation, as illustrated below.

Different audiences are intended for these documents but in broad outline the components are:

Future Developments

As MODAF is used more across the defence community, it is becoming apparent that additional areas will benefit from MODAF support. These will be addressed in the near future. The documentation suite will evolve over time to reflect the needs of the user community

Page version 1.2, dated 23rd June 2008

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