Analysis Model for Selection of Private Sector Consensus Standards
Applicability of standard
- Is it clear who should use the standard and for what applications?
- How does the standard fit into the Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA)?
- What was done to investigate viable alternative standards (i.e., due diligence) before selecting this standard?
Availability of standard
- Is the standard published and publicly available?
- Is a copy of the standard free or must it be purchased?
- Are there any licensing requirements for using the standard?
Completeness of standard
- To what degree does the candidate standard define and cover the key features necessary to support the specific functional area or service?
Implementations to standard
- Does the standard have strong support in the commercial marketplace?
- What commercial products exist for this standard?
- Are there products from different vendors in the market to implement this standard?
- If the standard is proprietary, are there nevertheless many products readily available from a variety of vendors?
- Are there any existing or planned mechanisms to assess conformity of implementations to the standard?
Interoperability of standard
- How does this standard provide users the ability to access applications and services through Web services?
- What are the existing or planned mechanisms to assess the interoperability of different vendors? Implementations?
Legal considerations
- Are there any patent assertions made to this standard?
- Are there any IPR assertions that will hinder USG distribution of the standard?
Maturity of standard
- How technically mature is the standard?
- Is the underlying technology of the standard well-understood (e.g., a reference model is well-defined, appropriate concepts of the technology are in widespread use, the technology may have been in use for many years, a formal mathematical model is defined, etc.)?
- Is the standard based upon technology that has not been well-defined and may be relatively new?
Source of standard
- What standards body developed and now maintains this standard?
- Is this standard a de jure or de facto national or international standard?
- Is there an open process for revising or amending this standard?
Stability of standard
- How long as this standard been used?
- Is the standard stable (e.g., its technical content is mature)?
- Are major revisions or amendments in progress that will affect backward compatibility with the approved standard?
- When is the estimated completion date for the next version?