The SvcV-10b Services State Transition Description is one of the three models used to describe service functionality. It identifies responses of services to events.

For a detailed description see the DoDAF web site: SVcV-10b Services State Transition Description.

With HOPEX DoDAF, this viewpoint describes the specific behaviors (state machines) attached to services. A behavior is a specific concept used to describe how a service reacts to different events from start points to end points.

A state machine is a set of states and transitions governing the state changes that can match any time-dependent object. It is used to describe how a service reacts to different events from the start points to the end points.

A state machine diagram basically represents the sets of events to which the systems in the architecture will respond (by taking an action to move to a new state) as a function of its current state. Each transition specifies an event and an action.

A state machine diagram enables description of possible behaviors of an object, depending on the events it experiences during its life cycle.