UAF — Unified Architecture Framework
UAF is an OMG standard that assists in development of architectural descriptions in commercial industry firms, federal government agencies and defense organizations. UAF has a variety of use cases from Enterprise and Mission architecting, to System of Systems (SoS) and Cyber-physical Systems engineering, as well as being an enabler for Digital Transformation efforts and for Department of Defense Architecture Framework (DoDAF) and NATO Architecture Framework (NAF) modeling. Architectural Descriptions in UAF are aligned with ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010:2011, Systems and software engineering -- Architecture description.
UAF provides a specification document that is readily understandable not only by the community of enterprise architects, architects of information technology systems, and systems engineers, but also by a wide range of other users including executives and enterprise managers that sponsor such systems, program managers that oversee their development, developers of supporting hardware and software items (design, implementation, and testing), subject matter experts supporting such activities, and modelers of various sorts.
The specification is split into two normative components represented by separate documents: Part 1: containing the Domain Metamodel (DMM) and Part 2: containing the Unified Architecture Framework Modeling Language (UAFML). UAF also has three informative appendixes: Appendix A - Traceability, Appendix B - Sample Problem, and Appendix C - Enterprise Architecture Guide for UAF. Companion elements for Parts 1 and 2 of the UAF specification are provided as two normative machine-readable files (in XMI format).
Part 1 (UAF DMM) provides a formal domain meta model (DMM) organized as a number of View Specifications, which are organized within a two-dimensional grid consisting of rows representing Viewpoints related to stakeholder concerns and columns representing Aspects of the architecture in terms of different ways of viewing the architectural features. The Viewpoints include the following Architecture Management, Summary and Overview, Strategic, Operational, Services, Personnel, Resources, Security, Project, Standards, and Actual Resources. Each View Specification defines a number of elements required to construct the corresponding View of the architecture. The primary modeling elements in UAF are as follows: Capabilities, Operational Performers and Operational Activities, Resources (including Resource Performers, such as Persons, Organizations, and Systems, plus Software, Technologies, Natural Resources, and Information Elements), Functions, Constraints/Rules, Services, Projects, and Standards. The UAF DMM is based on the IDEAS Ontology. Everything in this ontology has four dimensions (temporal and spatial), subtypes, and measures.
Part 2 (UAFML) of the specification, defines a number of practical Views and elements that are mapped to the Domain Metamodel described in Part 1 and which serves as a means for modeling an enterprise. UAF ML specifies UAF DMM implementation in terms of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and Systems Modeling Language (SysML). It defines UML extensions (so-called stereotypes) that characterize the UAF DMM. It is also dependent on a SysML profile, which is another extension to UML. The purpose of this dependency is to inherit SysML graphical notation, and engineering analysis techniques applicable to SysML (e.g., parametric analysis).
In addition to being available as an OMG standards, Part 1 (UAF DMM) and Part 2 (UAFML) are both published as international ISO standards ISO/IEC 19540-1:2022 and ISO/IEC 19540-2:2022.
- Title:
- Unified Architecture Framework
- Acronym:
- UAF
- Version:
-
1.3
- Document Status:
-
formal ⓘ
- Publication Date:
- April 2026
- Categories:
- IPR Mode ⓘ
- Non-Assert ⓘ
Table Of Contents
- About the Specification
- Companies that have contributed to the development of this Specification
- Issues associated with this specification
- Specification Documents
- History
- Links
Companies that have contributed to the development of this Specification
- Copyright © 2021; 2024 88solutions
- Copyright © 2024 Aerospace Corporation
- Copyright © 2021; 2024 Airbus Group
- Copyright © 2024 Arcfield
- Copyright © 2024 Auxilium Technology Group
- Copyright © 2021; 2024 BAE SYSTEMS
- Copyright © 2021; 2024 Boeing
- Copyright © 2021; 2024 Dassault Systemes
-
Copyright © 2024
Department of Navynow ( Department of Defense ) - Copyright © 2024 Elparazim
- Copyright © 2021; 2024 GfSE e.V.
- Copyright © 2024 INCOSE
- Copyright © 2021; 2024 Lockheed Martin
- Copyright © 2021; 2024 MEGA International
- Copyright © 2021; 2024 MITRE
- Copyright © 2024 Northrop Grumman
- Copyright © 2024 Office of the Secretary of Defense
- Copyright © 2021 Perspecta
- Copyright © 2024 RTX
- Copyright © 2024 Rolls Royce Corporation
- Copyright © 2024 Sierra Nevada
-
Copyright © 2024
Software Engineering Institutenow ( Carnegie Mellon University ) - Copyright © 2021; 2024 Sparx Systems Pty Ltd
- Copyright © 2021; 2024 Syntell AB
- Copyright © 2021 THALES
- Copyright © 2021 The Aerospace Corporation
- Copyright © 2024 Zuken Vitech Inc.
- Copyright © 2024 agnos.ai UK Ltd
-
Copyright © 2024
oose eGnow ( oose Innovative Informatik eG )
Issues associated with this specification
Issues Reported in this Specification
‐
Version 1.3 only
Specification Documents
Normative Documents
| Description | Format | URL | OMG File ID |
|---|---|---|---|
| Specification - DMM |
UAF/1.3/DMM/PDF
|
formal/25-10-01 | |
| Specification - UAFML |
UAF/1.3/UAFML/PDF
|
formal/25-10-03 |
Normative Machine Readable Documents
| Description | Format | URL | OMG File ID |
|---|---|---|---|
| Normative Machine Readable UAF XMI File | XML |
UAF/20241101/UAF.xml
|
dtc/24-11-06 |
| Normative Machine Readable UAF Measurements Library XMI File | XML |
UAF/20241101/MeasurementsLibrary.xml
|
dtc/24-11-07 |
Informative Documents
| Description | Format | URL | OMG File ID |
|---|---|---|---|
| Specification changebar - DMM |
UAF/1.3/DMM/PDF/changebar
|
formal/25-10-02 | |
| Specification changebar - UAFML |
UAF/1.3/UAFML/PDF/changebar
|
formal/25-10-04 | |
| Unified Architecture Framework (UAF) Traceability (Informative) Appendix A, v1.3 |
formal/25-10-05.pdf
|
formal/25-10-05 | |
| Unified Architecture Framework (UAF) Sample Problem (Informative) Appendix B, v1.3 |
formal/25-10-06.pdf
|
formal/25-10-06 | |
| Enterprise Architecture Guide for UAF (Informative) Appendix C, v1.3 |
formal/25-10-07.pdf
|
formal/25-10-07 |
History
Formal Versions
| Version | Adoption Date | URL |
|---|---|---|
| 1.3 | April 2026 | https://www.omg.org/spec/UAF/1.3 |
| 1.2 | July 2022 | https://www.omg.org/spec/UAF/1.2 |
| 1.1 | April 2020 | https://www.omg.org/spec/UAF/1.1 |
| 1.0 | October 2017 | https://www.omg.org/spec/UAF/1.0 |
Links
- This Document:
- https://www.omg.org/spec/UAF/1.3/About-UAF
- RDF
- https://www.omg.org/spec/UAF/1.3/About-UAF.rdf
- JSON-LD
- https://www.omg.org/spec/UAF/1.3/About-UAF.jsonld
- Latest Document:
- https://www.omg.org/spec/UAF
- RDF
- https://www.omg.org/spec/UAF/About-UAF.rdf
- JSON-LD
- https://www.omg.org/spec/UAF/About-UAF.jsonld
- All Machine Readable:
- https://www.omg.org/spec/UAF/machine-readable
- Members Only
- https://www.omg.org/members/spec/UAF/1.3
- Supersedes:
- https://www.omg.org/spec/UAF/1.3/Beta1
- Keywords:
- Contact:
- Send a question ⓘ