Review of the Bristol Local Group event on 29th June 2005
The latest event put on by the Bristol Local Group was the
eagerly awaited "Architectural Frameworks - How MODAF will change my
life!". An event concerned with MODAF has been requested from the
very first set of event feedback forms, so consequently there was a
high turnout of people on the night, ready to be educated and
enlightened. The evening kicked off with an overview from Rick
Adcock (Cranfield University), showing how architectural frameworks
have evolved, and how system architecting fits into contemporary
systems engineering as described in ISO15288. This helped to set the
scene for what architectural frameworks are, how they should be
used, and where MODAF has come from. The
slides are available
(ppt, 1.3MB).
We were fortunate enough to have three of the MODAF Partners
(Dave Mawby, Fariba Hozhabrafkhan, and Ian Bailey) presenting their
latest thinking at the event, so in some cases the information was
even more up to date than that on the www.modaf.com website. Dave
Mawby started off with an introduction to MODAF, and an explanation
of its target audience. He then went on to explain the differences
between MODAF and DODAF, covering both the newly introduced diagrams
and the modifications to existing ones. Then followed an explanation
of some of the enablers to MODAF including the six step architecting
process, the documentation set, and the "patchwork quilt" effect
that should emerge as MODAF compliant models are captured in the set
of architectural repositories. A number of comments from the floor
were raised during this, querying where industry fitted in, and what
level of training support would be provided. It was stated that
industry involvement was up to the IPT to decide, but that the MODAF
guidance (backed up by mentoring and targetted deskbooks) would
provide an appropriate steer, based upon feedback from the MODAF
pilot projects.
Ian Bailey then went through the MODAF meta model and taxonomy,
touching upon issues such as alignment with SysML, model data
exchange between MODAF modelling tools, and how to enable a
heterogenous set of architectural repositories to share data using
OWL (Web Ontology Language), since there are likely to be many
existing sources of data that could be pulled through into MODAF
models. He also covered the ongoing work with tool vendors to
support the framework, finishing with the statement that whilst
there are three "MODAF convergent" tools, none of them are MODAF
compliant as yet.
Overall, the presentations and discussions provided a good
overview of the current state of MODAF and how it will be rolled out
over the coming months. Copies of the presentations should be
available on the INCOSE Bristol Local Group website (www.incose.org.uk/bristol)
soon, hopefully well in advance of the next event on Wednesday 28th
September - the tool vendors' response to the MODAF challenge!
Ian Gibson
(on behalf of the INCOSE Bristol Local Group) |
