The Department of Defense Architecture Framework or DoDAF is the oldest formal enterprise architecture framework established after the Zachman Framework Ontology. The DoDAF was established in response to the Clinger Cohen Act mandating IT Architecture across government including the DoD. The early version of DoDAF was known as the C4ISR (Command, Control, Computers and Communication of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance), which formalized a set of products associated with a set of views and viewpoints. This evolved into the DoDAF 1.0, DoDAF 1.5 and currently DoDAF 2.0. The relevance of DoDAF was replicated in other defense frameworks including the UK Ministry of Defense (MODAF), NATO (NAF), and others in Canada, Australia, and more. The DoDAF (and other associated frameworks) was created to establish a common language for describing architectures that provide a flexible set of views. The DoDAF provides an important basis for comparing architectures and identifying relevant interfaces. Currently The Object Management Group (OMG) is attempting to create a consolidated defense framework drawing from DoDAF, MODAT, NAF, and the like including relationships with non-military systems including the Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF2), and TOGAF. The anticipated result of this effort will be called the Unified Architecture Framework.

Note the following descriptions are adapted from The All in One Guide to Enterprise Architecture Certification co-authored with Prakash Rao, Ann Reedy and myself (McGraw Hill, forthcoming September 2018). The DoDAF organizes views into eight viewpoints as illustrated below.

Note the systems engineering view is composed of two views: services and systems.

1) All Viewpoint is an overview of the entire architecture providing both a living executive summary of the architecture, including conclusions and recommendations, and the detailed definitions for all terms used in the architecture.  This viewpoint is used by all architecture stakeholders.

2) The Capability Viewpoint concerns the strategic aspects of the enterprise, including the vision of the enterprise, its goals and objectives, capabilities necessary to achieve goals and objectives, the relationships among the capabilities, the delivery of capabilities and their change over time, and what organizations use these capabilities.  This viewpoint is of primary interest to executive management.

3) The Data and Information Viewpoint concerns descriptions of the shared, structured enterprise data.  Views in this viewpoint proffer representations of the conceptual, logical, or physical models of shared data.  This viewpoint is of interest to any of business managers, operational personnel, and IT personnel, depending on the level of detail included.

4) The Operational Viewpoint gives information on the operations of the enterprise, including the business or mission concept of operations, the business or mission processes, performers, information flows between performers and the activities of the processes, and the organizations involved.  The Operational Viewpoint provides information on the operational behaviors of the enterprise: what operational elements have state behavior, the key operational scenarios, and the business or operational rules entailed. This viewpoint is of primary interest to the business manager and operational personnel. 

5) The Project Viewpoint concerns the various development projects current or planned for the enterprise.  Views in this viewpoint identify what organizations manage projects, delivery timelines are for sets of projects and what the dependencies among the deliveries are, and what projects provide components for which capability.  This viewpoint is of primary interest to executives and business managers.

6) The Services Viewpoint gives information on the business or IT services of the enterprise.  This information can include: what the service functions, service interfaces, and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are; how the services are interconnected; resources that are exchanged; and when services will be available.  The behavioral aspects of the services can also be described.  This viewpoint is of primary interest to business managers (for business services) and IT personnel (for IT services).

7) The Standards Viewpoint concerns the technical standards and the systems or services to which these standards apply. The technical standards are organized based on a Technical Reference Model (TRM).  Standards may have dates associated with them: when the standard must be met and when the standard will no longer apply and what emerging standard will replace it.  This viewpoint is of primary interest to IT personnel and to business managers involved in acquisition.

8) The Systems Viewpoint provides information on the enterprise’s systems.  Information include the systems and how they are interconnected, what resources flow between them, when they become available, and what activities are supported.  This viewpoint is of primary interest to IT personnel.

Each of these viewpoints contain individual views or models, which in TOGAF terms are artifacts.  These include narratives,  matrices and diagrams. See Rao, Reedy and Bellman (2018) for a breakdown and detailed description of these views in the context of a case study example.

Also note that the artifacts, products and views in both DoDAF and MODAF have been compared to their counterparts in TOGAF by MITRE and can be found in the TOGAF Library.  

Authored by: Dr. Beryl Bellman, Principal Instructor