Operational Capability Advancement Through Open Architecture Application - Flipbook - Page 4
WHAT IS OPEN ARCHITECTURE (OA)?
The military environment is one of the 昀氀uid challenges and operational objectives that must be ef昀椀ciently met so our war昀椀ghters
can operate with the highest ratio of overmatch and the lowest ratio of risk possible with available technology.
To achieve this balance, we need to build our systems more consistently, using a strategy that enables greater 昀氀exibility in our
functional architectures, commercial rights, and engineering processes; employing common approaches to considerations such
as authority management, safety assurance, and security accreditation; and enabling our avionics mission system products to
be adaptable and reusable across programs.
Open Architecture is the application of standard practices and technical approaches that are readily available (Open) to the
community of interest (Enterprise).
The standards provide stakeholders in the enterprise with a consistent set of tools to generate requirements, as well as specify
and develop, integrate, test, and deploy architecture products for our systems from inception to sundown.
How Can OA Advance Operational
Capability?
Historically, a great deal of OA work and justi昀椀cation has been focused on the programmatic bene昀椀ts of breaking vendor-lock,
also known as un-competitive technical advantage. Whilst delivering these programmatic bene昀椀ts is important, and indeed is
essential in the examples presented here, the ultimate goal is to provide enhanced capability to our war昀椀ghters on the front line.
A Chief Engineer and their team of architects should design modular architectures that have functional components tightly
speci昀椀ed to available standards, which can introduce greater 昀氀exibility, extensibility, and variation within the systems. This technical freedom, coupled with a strong understanding of the operational environment, can be combined to deliver systems to our
war昀椀ghters that have increased interoperability and are inherently designed to stay ahead of the enemy’s technological curve.
The following six examples show OA in a capability context.
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