UAF specifies that an enterprise architecture can be thought of in terms of: domains, views, and viewpoints.
Domains are areas, or layers, of the enterprise architecture. They include:
•Summary (Sm) – the high-level summary of the architecture – includes the All View (AV).
•ArchitectureManagement (Am) – new in UAF 1.2; provides guidance on creating and managing an architecture.
•Strategic (St) – the same as DoDAF 2’s Capability domain and MODAF’s Strategic domain.
•Operational (Op) – the same as DoDAF 2’s Operational domain.
•Personnel (Pr) – since so much goes into the modeling of human factors, the organizational chart has been broken out into its own domain.
•Resources (Rs) – the same as DoDAF 2’s Systems domain, but focusing on all kinds of Resources.
•Services (Sv) – the same as DoDAF 2’s Services domain.
•Security (Sc) – a new domain introduced by the Canadian DNDAF.
•Projects (Pj) – the same as DoDAF 2’s Project domain and MODAF’s Project domain.
•Standards (St) – the same as DoDAF 2’s Standards domain.
•Actual Resources (Ar) – the optional modeling of instances of types of artifacts.
•Metadata (Md) – the capture of the metamodel of the architecture.
A Viewpoint is the modeling or information view for the domain. UAF specifies these views:
•Taxonomy (Tx) – the names of artifacts in the architecture for a domain, what they mean, and their hierarchy (what belongs to what).
•Structure (Sr) – dependencies, connections, and relationships of artifacts.
•Connectivity (Cn) – typically how Roles are connected.
•Process (Pr) – includes Operational Activity, Resource Function, and Service Function flow diagrams, decomposition of Activities and Functions, and the Process flow diagrams that show how they are orchestrated.
•States (St) – State diagram showing the state that an artifact is in, and how it transitions to other states.
•Interaction Scenarios (Is) – a UML Sequence diagram view of artifacts shown as Object Lifelines, and exchanges of resources or information between them shown chronologically top to bottom.
•Information (If) – Data models.
•Constraints (Ct) – a visual of the constraints that must apply to architectural elements.
•Roadmap (Rm) – a timeline view of an artifact over time.
•Traceability (Tr) – a matrix of some sort showing how artifacts are related to one another.
•Overview (Ov) – an overall view of the Summary domain.
Combine the two categories above and you get a View. A View is typically visualized or created through a Diagram Type, a Matrix, or a Report. For example:
•Op-Sr Operational Structure viewpoint – similar to the OV-2 of DoDAF 2.
•Op-Pr Operational Process viewpoint – includes the OV-5a, OV-5b, and OV-6c of DoDAF 2.
•Rs-Ct Resource Constraint viewpoint – similar to the SV-10a of the DoDAF 2.
•Sm-Ov Summary and Overview viewpoint – similar to the All View (AV-1) of DoDAF 2.