A powerful architecture tool available via an enterprise-wide MOD support contract

BACKGROUND

Defence Digital provide a set of global personnel across the Ministry of Defence with core IT services vital to their role. Either on the front line, or in the back office, enabling mobilisation, modernisation and transformation, Defence Digital are the digital lynchpin in the MOD’s operations.

Many teams from all commands across the MOD, as well as industry partners, have a need to create architectural models of operations and processes or create interactive solutions for their people to aid them in coordinated, efficient, and safe working. These needs can be short or long-term, be planned well in advance or an unplanned urgent requirement, they could be for 1 person or over a thousand users.

Defence Digital needed a software product and dedicated support that would be flexible enough to meet these multiple requirements, was scalable, and instantly available without commercial delays or constraints.

THE CHALLENGE

A solution was required that could be easily learned, deployed swiftly, that enabled rapid building of models and operational solutions, but would be technically sophisticated enough to tackle a wide range of tasks.

The MOD required a service that would deliver:

• Flexible functionality in a single platform.
• Speed in deployment and training of users.
• A responsive support function.
• The opportunity to influence the future development of the software in partnership with the supplier.
• Build and maintenance of the IT infrastructure to support the software platform.

The software platform needed to:

• Be a no-code / low-code software platform.
• Give the ability to build architectures from which stakeholders could gain business insights.
• Be architecture framework agnostic.
• Deliver the ability to create digitised operating frameworks.
• Enable analysis and presentation.

THE SOLUTION

Mood software is a great fit and CACI have proudly supported Defence Digital for around 8 years.

CACI agreed an enterprise licensing approach that means anyone in the MOD can request a Mood license online or by telephone and is given access to a new Mood repository, the same day. Training is provided on request, speedily and a short course is all that’s needed to start working productively with the software.

The support service provides help and guidance, making sure users get the most benefit from Mood, and CACI run regular user forums to help the MOD Mood User community share great ideas.

Many people in the MOD have become expert creators of material in Mood, and, because of the excellence of the presentation layer, many of the solutions built with it have hundreds of regular users who view and work with outcomes rather than building in Mood.

Mood Business Architect (MBA) software provides a no code/low code Enterprise Architecture tool for developing and maintaining models. The product is extremely flexible and enables users to define data structures and relationships as required to model their problem space. The software utilises a SQL Server database, and network hosting enables multiple architects to access and contribute to the model. A powerful permissions model with the MBA tool enables administrators to protect and restrict access as applicable.

Once developed, models can be shared with a wider stakeholder base via Mood Active Enterprise (MAE). Models are presented in a web browser and tools are available to make the user experience fully interactive, for instance, providing opportunities to update data, apply filters, drill down/up into lower or higher levels, etc.

THE RESULTS

There are between 60 and 100 individual repositories built in Mood at any one time, all supported through the Managed Service. Here are some of them:

GEAR, the Guide to Engineering Activities and Reviews, is a mandated source of guidance to the defence engineering community. Built originally by contractors and now maintained by the MOD personnel using Mood software, it replaces an unwieldy set of previous materials with fully digitised guidance, with unlimited user access. Widely and frequently used, GEAR has around 22,000 logins per year.

DLF, the Defence Logistics Framework is a one-stop shop for defence logistics policy, digitising for the first time a comprehensive set of documents, and supporting re-authoring. DLF has over 52,000 logins a year.

Maritime, Air and Land Defence Frameworks are all Mood-based high-level capability models of the domains. These provide a vital overview and breakdown of defence capabilities in their respective domains.

The reference frameworks save significant time for staff officers new in post, and ensure consistency is maintained within the FLC’s.

Support Chain Information Service Architectural Repository (Formerly LNECA: Logistics Net Enabled Capability Architecture) holds information on all of the logistics systems and has been in operation since 2008. It’s continuously updated and developed and is the intelligence source for briefings to senior managers. If deleted, it would have to be re-built as it’s vital to strategic and operational thinking.

THE FUTURE

The Managed Service (MS) provided to Defence Digital continues to support users throughout the MOD, giving users access to licensing and support via the MS desk. This provision underpins a wide range of operational capability through the Ministry and provides continued value through the delivery of comprehensive support and advice for enterprise architects and users of Mood applications.

As the Mood software platform develops, so do the capabilities it supports across the MOD, providing new functionality and performance so that MOD personnel can use the tool to drive operational efficiency in their respective areas of interest. The Mood Managed Service is a solution for Enterprise Architecture at the MOD and continues to drive collaboration throughout the organisation, providing the ability to model core business functions and processes, as well as their interdependencies MOD-wide.

As the MOD continues to modernise, the importance of such a function is clear and CACI remain committed to delivering a robust and capable Managed Service that continues to demonstrate Mood’s capability as the Enterprise Architecture tool of choice.

The Managed Service is excellent. It provides a means for anybody in the MOD to take advantage of the flexibility of Mood in the development of online applications or architectural models. In this it is second to none. In addition, the CACI team provide the support and management of the service to ensure that the end user has a trouble-free experience.

The responsiveness of this service to requests, issues and queries, in general, is quick, efficient and effective. The software is kept up to date in a controlled and risk-free way. This does not mean that there aren’t issues, but these are generally dealt with quickly and, in the main, transparently. Our experience of the Service in the development of Lighthouse (Defence Exercise Programme) and Lantern (Observation Capture and Analysis) for JW and Astral (Collective Training Objectives Management) for Air has enabled us to deliver solutions that are effective and adaptive to changing user needs, offering significant cost-effective benefits to their end user communities.

Alan Payne, Managing Director, Agilient International

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