In my various roles as an Information Architect (Deputy Chief Architect for a 125-person program at General Dynamics Mission System or System Architect on a much larger program at Raytheon), I find myself having to make lots of different types of architectural diagrams. And, especially now that I’m doing so much government contracting, most of these diagrams have to conform to DODAF 2.0, the DoD Architecture Framework 2.0.
Probably the most familiar to most people are the Operational Views, such as the OV-1, a High-Level Conceptual View of of a project or enterprise; or the System Views, such as the SV-1, the System Interface Description. But, even if these two are most common, there are a bunch of other diagram types, as well.
From a practical standpoint, there are also different options for creating some of these diagrams, especially the OV-1s, which are at more of a conceptual level.
Every time I found myself doing a new batch of diagrams for a project, and on these programs it’s important to realize that I ranged across a LOT of projects, I ended up doing Internet searches to find examples of the types of diagrams I wanted to do.
After a while, I got tired of the repetitive searches, so I spent a weekend combing through publicly available diagrams and curated some of the best examples into a single document that I called simply, System Architecture Views.
The charts and diagrams collected in this presentation were gathered from all around the Web and were created by a diverse set of individuals and organizations. I don’t claim credit for the production of any of the diagrams, only their compilation into a comprehensive reference document. All diagrams are included under the fair use doctrine.
The PDF version of the PowerPoint presentation is provided gratis to the community to promote the noble cause of quality enterprise architecture.
I make no money off the document. I have no problem with anybody sharing it, though I think it’s fair to ask you to keep my name associated with it.
Let me know if you find it useful, or if you have suggestions to improve it further.