A2 - Architecture Products

The A2 Architecture Products View lists the products that describe an Architecture, and the views to which those products correspond.

Concerns Addressed

  • Architecture Content.
  • Specification and Mapping of Stakeholder Concerns.

Background

The A2 View specifies the structure of an architecture, and the products that describe the architecture. Each product may correspond to an architecture view. This view also traces the architectures onto the Enterprise Phases they correspond to (see also C2 – Enterprise Vision) and identifies the key stakeholders, their concerns and the products that address those concerns (from ISO42010).

Usage

  • Summarising an Architecture.
  • Navigating an Architecture.

Representation

An A2 view is usually presented using the NAF grid, as outlined at Section 3.1. However, should the architect be using a locally defined set of views or a methodology that dictates a specific order of views, then this may also be used if it assists with navigating the architecture.

Detailed View Description

An A2 view lists the views that make up the architecture description and which views those views conform to.

Figure 3-77: Example A2 View

A2 attempts to follow ISO42010 as closely as possible, which is based on IEEE1471. Some additions have also been made to the standard to fully support the NAF. For version 4.0 of NAF, the terminology has been aligned with ISO42010 whereas previous version of the NAF were aligned with the more commonly used terminology of DoDAF, MODAF, TOGAF, Zachman etc. The definitions in ISO42010 are fairly loose so it is important to understand the interpretations used in NAF v4.0:

</td> </tbody> </table> ## Key Elements and Their Relationships ## Meta-Model The detailed meta-model and element list for A2, Architecture Products, is at paragraph 4.7.2.
ISO42010 Term ISO42010 Definition NAF v4.0 Interpretation
Architecture Fundamental concepts or properties of a system in its environment embodied in its elements, relationships, and in the principles of its design and evolution. In practice, this is rather difficult to distinguish from either the System of interest, or the Architecture Description in ISO42010. NAF interprets this to be the aspects of the System (Enterprise in the case of NAF) that we are interested in.
Architecture Description Work product used to express an architecture. Interpreted to be the complete architecture being produced for the enterprise.
Architecture Framework Conventions, principles and practices for the description of architectures established within a specific domain of application and/or community of stakeholders.

EXAMPLE1 Generalised Enterprise Reference Architecture and Methodologies (GERAM) [ISO 15704] is an architecture framework.

EXAMPLE2 Reference Model of Open Distributed Processing (RM-ODP) [ISO/IEC 10746] is an architecture framework.		 This is the NAF standard, including views, meta- model and methodology.
Architecture Model Model from which architecture views are composed. NAF assumes this to mean that architecture views may consist of one or more architecture.
Architecture View Model from which architecture views are composed. NAF assumes this to mean that architecture views may consist of one or more architecture models. This is assumed to be an instance of a view and may consist of one or more Architecture Models.

Note: In NAF 3.x, MODAF, DoDAF, etc. this was called “Product”.
Architecture View Work product establishing the conventions for the construction, interpretation and use of architecture views to frame specific system concerns. In NAF v4 this equates to each cell in the grid, as defined in each sub- section of chapter 3.

Note: In NAF 3.x, MODAF, DoDAF, etc. this was called “view”.
Model Kind Conventions for one type of modelling. Assumed to be a category of model / view. These seem to equate to the columns in the NAF 4.0 grid, and at a finer-grain level to each “Representation” sub- section in Chapter 3.
Model Kind Conventions for one type of modelling. Assumed to be a category of model / view. These seem to equate to the columns in the NAF 4.0 grid, and at a finer-grain level to each “Representation” sub- section in Chapter 3.
System-of-interest System whose architecture is under consideration and is the subject of an architecture description. NAF is an enterprise architecture framework, whereas ISO42010 has its origins in software systems architecture. NAF therefore interprets the term “system” in its widest sense to include people, organisations and technical systems. Architecture View Note: In NAF 3.x, MODAF, DoDAF, etc. this was called “Product”. Note: In NAF 3.x, MODAF, DoDAF, etc. this was called “view”.

For the purposes of NAF, Enterprise and EnterprisePhase are used instead if system-of-interest. The used of EnterprisePhase allows for architectures to cover different stages of an Enterprise’s evolution.