232. STANAGs regulate the information exchange between systems and services and form the basis for technical interoperability. These STANAGs are under configuration management within NATO and are evolving in line with the evolution of NATO roles and derived requirements.

233. Gaps in current STANAGs related to this evolution and areas for improvement of the STANAGs have been identified. These include lack of support for NNEC Data Strategy requirements, a lack in the ability to verify and validate (V&V) the quality of the STANAG content and implementation, and the need for resource optimization required for the management and maintenance of the STANAGs. The STANAG Transformation Framework (STF) set of design rules is based on a proven solution to the identified problems related to the contents, the quality and the resources required for the management of the STANAG that are regulating the information exchange within NATO.

234. The STF set of design rules provides a methodology to apply STF in order to transform traditional human-readable textual representation of the STANAGs into equivalent machine-readable representations to support NNEC goals of making data Visible, Accessible, Understandable and Interoperable.

235. The STF has been successfully applied to various STANAGs related to and tested within different Communities of Interest (COIs). In particular, STF design rules have been applied to the Tactical Data Link (TDL), the Asset Tracking (AST), Joint Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (JISR) and the Friendly Force Tracking (FFT) communities within NATO.

236. Viewed from a common perspective, the STF design rules have been shown to address problems that occur over and over again within different contexts. This has demonstrated its usefulness, applicability, reliability and trustworthiness as a means to develop and transform STANAGs that regulate the information exchange within NATO. Also as organisations and nations convert STANAGs to XML to meet their own systems requirements, the STF sets out the design rules to enable this process, thus providing standardization and ensuring interoperability of our systems.

237. The NATO Standardization Agency (NSA) and Consultation, Command and Control Board (C3B) with Capability Panels (CaPs) and Capability Teams (CaTs) develop and maintain STANAGs under configuration management within NATO. As these bodies develop or maintain STANAGs, it is highly recommended that they apply the STF as needed based on the context of the problem they are trying to solve.