The Importance of Architecture in DoD Software

Abstract : This paper argues that in the face of declining military budgets and increasingly diverse threats, the key to making defense systems more flexible, while keeping costs down, is to procure and design software architectures. 'Architecture' is defined, and a number of examples are given to demonstrate the effects of architectures on various DoD systems. The paper concludes with recommendations for increasing architectural awareness in DoD procurements. Ada, Defense systems, DoD Procurement, Software architecture.