The Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) is an architecture framework for the United States Department of Defense (DoD) that provides visualization infrastructure for specific stakeholders concerns through viewpoints organized by various views. These views are artifacts for visualizing, understanding, and assimilating the broad scope and complexities of an architecture description through tabular, structural, behavioral, ontological, pictorial, temporal, graphical, probabilistic, or alternative conceptual means.

This Architecture Framework is especially suited to large systems with complex integration and interoperability challenges, and it is apparently unique in its employment of "operational views". These views offer overview and details aimed to specific stakeholders within their domain and in interaction with other domains in which the system will operate.

The DoDAF provides a foundational framework for developing and representing architecture descriptions that ensure a common denominator for understanding, comparing, and integrating architectures across organizational, joint, and multinational boundaries. It establishes data element definitions, rules, and relationships and a baseline set of products for consistent development of systems, integrated, or federated architectures. These architecture descriptions may include families of systems (FoS), systems of systems (SoS), and net-centric capabilities for inter-operating and interacting in the non-combat environment.

The purpose of DoDAF is to define concepts and models usable in DoD's six core processes:
  1. Joint Capabilities Integration and Development (JCIDS)
  2. Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution (PPBE)
  3. Defense Acquisition System (DAS)
  4. Systems Engineering (SE)
  5. Operational Planning (OPLAN)
  6. Capability Portfolio Management (CPM)

According to modeling needs, there are the following DoDAF 2.0 templates for different purposes:

  • DoDAF 2.0 Project - creates a blank DoDAF 2.0 project. creating a DoDAF 2.0 project will switch the application to the DoDAF 2.0 graphical user interface and use the DoDAF 2.0 model templates.
  • DoDAF Project - creates a blank DoDAF project. creating a DoDAF project will switch the application to the DoDAF graphical user interface and use the DoDAF model templates.
  • DoDAF 2.0 Project Template with Process Guide - using this template, you will get a new DoDAF 2.0 project enhanced with a modeling guide. The modeling guide helps you to build the architecture by providing summary information about the DoDAF 2.0 structure and the architecture creation process.

The DoDAF process (the following figure) is only recommendable. You can choose the creation sequence of diagrams according to your needs.

DoDAF process