Developing a C4I Architecture for the Netherlands Armed Forces

The purpose of this paper is to present the first results obtained in the development of a service-oriented C4I architecture for the Netherlands Armed Forces. New developments in military operations, such as NEC and EBO, call for higher levels of interoperability, both within the Netherlands Armed Forces and with its partners. Present-day missions of Dutch forces in Iraq and Afghanistan involve a wide range of coalition partners and other parties, with a wide range of modi operandi and levels of technical sophistication. This provides a challenge for the design of the Armed Forces’ C4I architecture. Agility becomes an indispensable property. A C4I architecture is urgently required to translate policy into requirements and to support the required improvement of interoperability and agility. In 2008 the Netherlands Defence Academy, together with TNO, started developing the C4I architecture by identifying and interviewing its primary stakeholders, thus ensuring that the product would serve the intended purpose of its future users. Purpose and scope of the C4I architecture were defined. Development of the operational process model and the information services model has been started. The paper provides an overview of the theoretical context, the chosen approach and initial results. Finally, some lessons learned are identified.