DODAF 2.0 is Final

Well, I am a bit slow... i admit it.

DODAF 2.0 was released this summer, and i have yet to read it thoroughly, but it appears that is heavily Data related, rather than system.

Thank GOD, some sanity!

We care about where the information is flowing, not the pretty structures.

anyhow, I am going to start a little expose here on dodaf 2.0 over the next couple of weeks, seems like a great christmas activity :)

let me know if you have any thoughts on 2.0 yet.

Showing a Dependent Data Item in a BPM to CDM

In my last post, I was looking at how to link a Business Process Model to the data that it will use. In the screen shot here, I am showing that the BPM defined a Data Item called Order. This data item has been Exported with PowerDesigner to the Conceptual Data Model. The concept of Order can now be fulfulled within the CDM as an Order Entity which will become the logical Order Item and finally a Table called Order in the Physical Data Model.

Hope this screen shot is accurate enough of the view... it is hard to show these things in one screen shot. Will get a screen shot of the export process when there is a collision of an existing CDM next. Until then...

Using Export Data to Link a BPM to CDM

While working a process definition, I started creating a number of data entities to support the processes. Once the initial three diagrams were created, there were about 15-20 data items that now needed some better definition. So, who do you go about this in PowerDesigner?

The process can go in two directions, which I keep forgetting.
The first is to open the conceptual data model (CDM), then open the business process model (BPM). while the BPM is the active model in view, use the Tools menu and select 'Import Data'. This will allow the BPM to grab all the Data Entities and generate the Data objects in the BPM that are assigned to processes or flows.
The second way, as I did, is to create the BPM with a set of data in it. This will then allow you to 'Generate Conceptual Model', which will reuse the data objects that were just created.

Anyway, why do you want to do this?
So that the DBA's know what processes the databases are supporting for one. In PowerDesigner, this also leads you to the O/R mapping between the physical data model and the application, or OOM, model.

will get some screenies on these two options later this week.

EA Gov by 1105

Long Hiatus :) I love the summer...

Anyway, i got invited to speak at EA Gov in DC last week. This was a really good conference for both a speaker and attendee. The session i was a panelist on had good questions and all the panelists did a good job answering. There was one speaker, from DOD, that was way too hyper... David Wennergren or something like that. Sad part about him, really positive, no substance. There were two questions that were asked that need better answers from someone at his level.
1. How do I obtain higher level stakeholder involvement in my agency?
He did not even entertain us with an example of success or challenge he experienced.
... arg, cant remember the other one.. tired today, sorry about that.

the session i got the most out of was on the first day.
Session 3-1: Agency Implementation of the FSAM
Really good session on the basics of what FSAM has done for you... The one part of the discussion i liked the most was generated from the question:
Why isnt FSAM a policy rather than a guideline?
The basic answer was that FSAM will be modified as needed for each agency, but not all of it. So how do you write policy that requires part, but not all of something? In the end, it just would not work, and I agree.

I Hope to get back to posting regularly now that my workload is normal. until next time.

TOGAF is too huge...

While I have been working with these frameworks, a colleague of mine has been educating us in other areas that we need to incorporate. TOGAF has been our focus for the past few weeks now, and I must say... IT IS HUGE!

In our efforts to understand it, without training mind you, I stumled across PEAF. This reduced concept of TOGAF was a great help in my comprehension. In the end, our team has been attempting to create a usable EA Process that is repeatable, and we have just not been able to accomplish this. Everyone wants to do it their way, and therefore change the framework in one way or another.

Will post on this further, and get some screen shots of TOGAF in PowerDesigner next week.

later

Metadata Capture in DoDAF

My last post showed my initial implementation of the DODAF in the PowerDesigner framework. This post will look at how i collected in the information within the process to create the OV3 matrix report.

There were three steps to collect the content. The first was generating the OV2 model as the starting the point. Once this model is created with some of the operational nodes defined, there is an opportunity to add a meta model extension to collect additional information that can be leveraged to automatically generate the OV3 report. Here is the metadata extension that I started for OV2.

This extension process was covered in a previous post here, so to do this, look in the archive. As for the report, PowerDesigner creates list reports through the use of a wizard, so if all the information you need has been collected, spitting it out is a basic task. here is the final report that i generated in HTML format, for review online by our COTR.

Hope this helps, until next time.

DoD AF in PowerDesigner

Hi All,


wanted to share some of the views of my implementation of DoD AF in Powerdesigner 15. I will follow this up with a discussion about how I did some of this and where the repetitive work is... versus the choice areas.

So, here is the framework matrix
Each of these cells has actions associated to them that help me force a methodology into the tool. For my example, i used the standard Staged Approach, so the flow looks like this:



As you can see, the path to complete the architecture is well defined in this approach, so there are actions in the framework that are ONLY ALLOWED to integrate with previous cell information. The best example of this is the generation of Matrices, like SV3 from SV2.




This image is showing the definition of an Action in the SV9 cell, that will generate an Object Oriented Model (UML to the rest of the world, not sure why PD does that) from an existing OOM.
These actions help me to scope what I allow architects to accomplish in each cell... GOVERNANCE :) i love it.

anyhow, let me know what you think, the next post will be about some of the martices and metadata i injected into this process to gather all of the information that i needed to complete this system description.