Modeling or framework standards are very important for correctly describing semantics through models and thus establishing a good communication among different stakeholders. But regular everyday experience is teaching us that model and diagram interchange (MDI) with e.g. UML® models (via XMI) or BPMN™ models (via XPDL) does not always work well to receive high quality deliverables, to say the least. And please forget about round-tripping among tools. So MDI is usually a somewhat horrible exercise for architects or developers.

IBM Rational® System Architect is a one of the leading EA and BPA modeling and analysis tools. It has great functionality; it supporting many standards such as BPMN 2.0 diagram types and famous frameworks like TOGAF 9, ArchiMate v2.0, DoDAF 2.0, MODAF 1.2, NATO Architecture Framework (NAF) 3.0, IAF v4 Integrated Architecture Framework, Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework 2.0 (FEAF 2.0) and last but not least the Zachman Framework. This rich functionality unfortunately, also builds complexity that is obstructive to efficient use by business analysts or project team initiatives like BPR (business process re-engineering) or blueprinting  of ERP solutions. These later teams and much prefer the easy use of Microsoft Visio® to map business processes or to scope existing best practice content for customer requirements.

There is an interesting report by Michael zur Muehlen, “Enterprise Architecture based on Design Primitives and Patterns, Guidelines for the Design and Development of Event-Trace Descriptions (DoDAF OV-6c) using BPMN”, already published in 2009 discussing about round-trip architecture, interoperability issues and architectural primitives of the DoDAF architecture framework.

Defense architecture frameworks like DoDAF, MoDAF or NAF (UPDM) are widely accepted standards, not only in defense-related organizations. Because of different frameworks and vendor-specific implementations of the modeling language, interoperability isn´t always achieved easily and information exchange is hardly possible between organizations and partners.The US Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) provides the structure for a specific stakeholder concern through different viewpoints. Based on DoDAF other frameworks have been derived such as the NATO Architecture Framework (NAF) and UK Ministry of Defense Architecture Framework (MoDAF).