Extending DoDAF to Allow Integrated DEVS-Based Modeling and Simulation

Abstract

A recent DoD mandate requires that the DoD Architecture Framework (DoDAF) be adopted to express high-level system and operational requirements and architectures. DoDAF is the basis for integrated architectures and provides broad levels of specification related to operational, system, and technical views. The combination of DoDAF operational views, which capture the requirements of the architecture, and systems views, which provide its technical attributes, forms the basis for semi-automated construction of the needed simulation models. Unfortunately, DoDAF doesn't mandate any simulation methodology to analyze the system or perform any pre-design feasibility studies. In this paper, we describe an approach to support specification of DoDAF architectures within a development environment based on DEVS (Discrete Event System Specification). The result is an enhanced system life cycle development process that includes both development and testing in an integral manner. We introduce two new operational views (OVs) in the current DoDAF making way for modeling and simulation as a part of the design process. We illustrate the process to build these new OVs from the existing OVs and their impact on the overall DoDAF system development process. We discuss automated model generation using XML through the introduced OVs, which paves the way for OVs to become service-providing components in the web services architecture.