Introduction to HOPEX NAF
The NATO Architecture Framework (NAF) provides the rules, guidelines and product descriptions that define a standard way of developing, organizing and presenting enterprise architecture. It also provides guidelines on how to describe communication and information systems. When this framework is applied, architectures are able to effectively contribute to the acquisition and fielding of cost-effective and inter-operable military capabilities. The framework ensures that architectures developed by NATO and its member countries can be compared and related across NATO and National boundaries.
A NAF implementation tool should be able to generate standardized documents that deal with enterprise architectures and that support the search for sponsorship and funding of major mission-oriented systems.
HOPEX NAF is designed to generate NAF deliverables. It is based on the standard features of HOPEX, however, dedicated features have been introduced to guide the NAF expert to use the product with the vocabulary with which he/she is accustomed.
The framework details all the views addressing the different aspects of enterprise architectures:
(the overall purpose,the operational perspective,the system perspective the technical perspective).
HOPEX NAF is based on the NAF v.3 release.HOPEX is designed to facilitate modeling and analyzing enterprise architectures.
Architecture Composition
The issues dealt with in architecture modeling range from business processes to technical infrastructure via systems and applications. Architecture modeling is a very broad subject and modeling a huge architecture which is composed of many business processes can be hard work. Splitting the task into smaller architectures can help to achieve the modeling effort. Adopting this solution means that a set of sub-architectures must be contained in the same repository. These architectures are then reused to compose bigger ones. To facilitate this, the HOPEX NAF supplies a referencing service that allows users to integrate architectures into a new one.
Evolution Traceability
NAF has several subviews that address the issue of architecture evolution (NSV-8, NSV-9, NTV- 2). These subviews help to determine the plans for future architecture changes. However, once the plan has been implemented, the architecture itself is in a new state that may be in line with the plan but which may also have differences due to unpredictable situations. In this case, the actual evolution of an architecture can be modeled via several architectures. Each of these architectures matches the actual state of the architecture at a given time and contains its own plans for the future.
Architecture Comparison
One of the main reasons behind having a Standard that specifies the format of enterprise architecture deliverables is that this facilitates the comparison of several architectures. All architectures display their properties and definitions in the same way. This enables readers to compare and analyze the differences in architectures and select the architecture that best corresponds to their needs.