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?