MODAF

The Ministry of Defence Architecture Framework (MODAF) defines a standard way to organize enterprise architectures for defense applications in the United Kingdom (UK). All major MOD weapons and information technology system procurements are required to document their enterprise architectures using the view products prescribed by the MODAF. MODAF is well suited to large systems and systems-of-systems (SoSs) with complex integration and interoperability issues. Although MODAF is primarily focused on defense applications, it can also be applied to commercial systems.

MODAF Overview
MODAF may be considered to be derived from the US Department of Defense Architecture Framework, with which it shares many similarities.

MODAF organizes enterprise architectures into six viewpoints, which are analogous to DoDAF views:

  • All Viewpoint (AV) with two views;
  • Standard Viewpoint (StV) with six views;
  • Operational Viewpoint (OV) with seven views;
  • System Viewpoint (SV) with eleven views;
  • Technical Standards View (TV) with two views.
  • Acquisition Viewpoint (AcV) with two views.

In practice, most systems only use a subset of the MODAF views to specify their system architectures. The MODAF metamodel is specified in UML 2.1 and uses the XMI 2.1 open standard for data interoperability. cf. DoDAF’s use of the Core Architecture Data Model (CADM).

MODAF Specifications

The most recent version of the MODAF specification is MODAF v. 1.1. The specification, along with the metamodel that defines its semantics, can be downloaded from the following links:

MODAF UML/SysML Examples

You can find MODAF specification examples that use UML/SysML as the architecture description language in the following resources:

  • MODAF 1.1 – The specification for MODAF contains various examples that use UML to define views.

MODAF Tools

The following is a selected list of modeling tools that support specifying MODAF-compliant architectures: