General

Purpose

Architecting is a practice for conducting enterprise analysis, design, planning, and implementation, using a holistic engineering approach at all times, for the implementation of strategy.

Architecting applies principles and practices to guide organisations through the business/mission, information, application and technology changes necessary to implement their strategies.¹

Good architecture practices include the usage of architectural artefacts to describe, assess, evaluate and document relevant aspects of an architecture.

The NATO Architecture Framework (NAF) provides a standardised way to develop architecture artefacts, by defining:

The aim of the NATO Architecture Framework Version 4 (NAF v4) is to provide a standard for developing and describing architectures for both military and business use.

Objectives

The objectives of the framework are:

1. To provide a way to organise and present architectures to stakeholders.

2. To specify the guidance, rules, and product descriptions for developing and presenting architecture information.

3. To ensure a common approach for understanding, comparing, and integrating architectures.

4. To act as a key enabler for acquiring and fielding cost-effective and interoperable capabilities.

5. Alignment with international standards (International Standards Organisation (ISO), Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), The Open Group, Object Management Group (OMG), etc).

Scope of NAF Documentation

This document provides an overview of the architecture concepts, the structure and the framework, and indicates where to find more specific information. It also describes, in general terms, the typical content and format of NAF Viewpoints, and the relationship with the NAF Meta-Model (known as MODAF Ontological Data Exchange Mechanism (MODEM)).

Reason for Change

Version 4 of the NAF replaces Version 3.² Both NAF Versions 3.0 and 3.1, and MODAF Version 1.2.004 were capable of supporting alliance interoperability through coherent use of architectures, and provided for the re-use of architecture artefacts and products that make it easier to describe systems and applications.

However neither was applied consistently and had not been developed as a standard. In addition they did not provide a common approach – by adopting a core methodology based on utilizing best practice (e.g. The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF®)).

They were also becoming more challenging to maintain because of limited technical resources.

To provide alignment with major terms and concepts with the following international standards:

• ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 Systems and Software Engineering – Architecture Description.

• ISO/IEC CD 42020 Systems and Software Engineering – Architecture Processes.

• ISO/IEC 42030 Systems and Software Engineering – Architecture Evaluation.

• The Open Group Architecture Framework (TOGAF) Version 9.1.

• ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2015 Systems and Software Engineering – System Lifecycle Processes.

• ISO 15704:2000 Industrial automation systems – Requirements for enterprise-reference architectures and methodologies.

Developing NAF v4 enabled the limitations above to be addressed and is a step towards a Unified Architecture Framework (UAF) as illustrated in figure below.