NATO Digital Backbone

1. The NATO Digital Backbone (NDBB) will provide the technical means to ensure universal connectivity and data transport across all domains of operations (Maritime, Land, Air, Space and Cyberspace) to share and employ data securely and effectively, to maximise information flow, increase military effectiveness and enhance political decision-making.
    
2. The NDBB serves as the foundational element connecting the edge to decision‑makers and effectors, supporting political consultation and Multi-Domain Operations (MDO). It integrates various data sources and services, enabling large-scale data sharing and exploitation, thus transforming NATO into a data-centric Alliance and enhancing military effectiveness and political decision-making.
    
3. The NDBB ensures persistent digital interoperability, and delivers resilience through a federation of various information domains and Communication and Information Systems (CIS) services. It supports consultation and decision-making processes while spanning across all operational domains, as well as operations at strategic, operational, and tactical levels.
    
4. By aggregating individual CIS and CIS federations, the NDBB provides resilient, scalable, and secure digital services, including cloud and edge services. It builds on agreed activities and projects like the “Allied software for Cloud and Edge services (ACE)” initiative. The NDBB relies on multiple service layers, including a resilient transport fabric, Cross‑Domain Solutions (CDS), and federated stakeholder clouds. It unifies communications via a common IP network and extends a cloud-first approach to the digital backbone.
    
5. The NATO Digital Backbone Reference Architecture (DBRA) is part of a family of reference architectures that collectively describe the complete Digital Continuum, governed by the Architecture for Interoperable Digital technologies within the Alliance (AIDA). These reference architectures are organization and implementation agnostic, providing common terminology and facilitating interoperability of organization-specific implementations.
    
6. In defining nine architectural principles, the DBRA aims to harmonize and modernize digital capabilities, supporting capability delivery efforts and minimizing duplications. The key drivers guiding the implementation of the DBRA include adaptability to future military challenges, achieving data superiority, enabling a secure environment, and accelerating agility, resilience, and survivability.
    
7. The DBRA guides the instantiation of the NDBB, by providing the architectural building blocks for participants to develop target architectures that adhere to common standards and specifications so that their solutions can be integrated and interconnected into a coherent and interoperable NDBB. The first increment of the DBRA includes 35 services spanning across the communications, core, and platform services of the C3 Taxonomy and chosen through consensus within some entities of the NATO Enterprise.

For the full document: NATO Digital Backbone & NATO Digital Backbone Reference Architecture