NSV-1 System Interface Description
The purpose of the System Interface Description is to illustrate which systems collaborate, and in what way they do so, to support the operational domain's information and information exchange needs as defined in the Operational View; most notably in NOV-2 and NOV-3.
NSV-1 links together the Operational Viewpoint and the System Viewpoint by depicting which systems and system connections realize which information exchanges. A system is defined as any organized assembly of resources and procedures united and regulated by interactions or interdependences to accomplish a set of specific functions. The term system in the System Viewpoint is used to denote software intensive systems (Federation of Systems (FoS), System of Systems (SoS), subsystems, and system components) and can include web services, network components and other hardware components, such as routers, satellites and network segments.
A system's services are accessed through the system's interfaces. Generally, an interface is a contract between the providers and consumers of (system) services. With software intensive systems, this contract is a declaration of a coherent set of public system functionalities. The system's interfaces specify the system's behaviour without specifying implementation aspects. An NSV-1 connection between system interfaces is the systems representation of an NOV-2 needline or NOV-3 information exchange. A single needline or information exchange may translate into multiple connections between system interfaces.
An NSV-1 documents:
• Systems and their interfaces
• System use dependencies between interfaces
• System collaborations (systems interacting with each other through their interfaces)
• Distributions of software systems to hardware systems
• Connections between hardware systems
• Patterns (optional); standard system collaborations that have been proven to be sound solutions to known problems).
Creating Capability Configurations
A capability configuration consists of a Resource Architecture attached to a capability of the NAV architecture.
This resource architecture, which is created in the NSV-1 subview, usually presents solutions for the operation of the architecture with different deliverables. These deliverables can include projects. Projects are defined in the NPV-1 subview.
To create a capability configuration:
1. Expand the System Views > SV-1 System Interface Description > Resource Architectures > All Resource Architectures.
2. Open the property page of a resource architecture.
3. In the Characteristics > Characteristics sub-page, Configured Capability section, use the New or Connect button to create or link the capability to be included in the capability configuration.
The new capability configuration automatically appears in the NCV-3 Capability Phasing Capability Configurations folder. It takes the name of the architecture resource that supports the capability.
Capability configurations can also be created in the creation wizard during the creation of resource architectures.Linking a System Process to a Resource Architecture
To specify that a system process is performed by a specific resource architecture:
1. Expand the System Views > NSV-1 System Interface Description > Resource Architectures > Root Resource Architectures folder.
2. Right-click the desired resource architecture and click New > Process Performance.
3. In the creation box, click on the arrow on the far right of the Performed Process box and select Connect.
For more information on system processes, see NSV-4 Systems Functionality Description.Creating an Application Structure Diagram
An Application Structure Diagram displays graphically the first level components of an Application, the access points (service/request points) and the connections between the components.To create an application structure diagram:
1. In the NAF navigation tree, expand System Views > NSV-1 System Interface Description > Applications.
2. Right-click an application and select New > Internal Architecture (Application Structure Diagram).
Before starting to draw your diagram, you need to display the sub-application view.
To display sub-applications:
1. From the diagram toolbar, click the View and Details button.
2. In the window that appears, select the Sub-applications check-box.