Viewpoint Reference

Owing to its heritage, HARTS’ viewpoint specifications borrow extensively from the CVRIA. Given its focus on communications analysis however, the communications viewpoint specification is significantly complex compared to CVRIA’s. The relationships between key artifacts in the HARTS are illustrated below.

This can be interpreted as:

  1. A Physical Object is defined with scope such that it would be under the control of a single Enterprise Object (not shown).
  2. An Application Object defines ITS functionality of that Physical Object.
  3. A Process Specification defines the functionality of the Application Object.
  4. An Information Flow represents the exchange of information between Physical Objects.
  5. Information Flows are further defined by the logical Data Flows they support.
  6. Characteristics of the Physical Object, requirements of the Application Object, and characteristics of supported information flows collectively suggest Management Standards.
  7. Contents of the Data Flow suggest ITS Application Layer Standards.
  8. Information Flow communications characteristics suggest Communications Protocol Standards.
  9. Information Flow contents suggest Communications Security Standards.
Note that unlike CVRIA, HARTS does not include an Enterprise (Institutional) viewpoint specification; enterprise concerns are out of scope of the HTG7 effort, though relating HARTS to CVRIA’s enterprise concepts would be relatively straightforward.