A viewpoint is a subdivision of the specification of a complete system, established to bring together those particular pieces of information relevant to some particular area of concern during the analysis or design of the system. Although separately specified, the viewpoints are not completely independent; key items in each are identified as related to items in the other viewpoints. Moreover, each viewpoint substantially uses the same foundational concepts (defined in Part 2 of RM-ODP). However, the viewpoints are sufficiently independent to simplify reasoning about the complete specification. The mutual consistency among the viewpoints is ensured by the architecture defined by RM-ODP, and the use of a common object model provides the glue that binds them all