Conference Report: ISO/IEC WORKSHOP ON WORLDWIDE RECOGNITION OF OSI TEST RESULTS, Gaithersburg, MD, May 6–8, 1991

1. Reasons for the Workshop The testing of Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) products is expensive and time consuming. Hence there is a great desire on the part of the suppliers of such products to have their products tested only once. At the same time, clients are seeking assurances that newly acquired OSI products will interwork with their existing systems. These two points of view cannot currently be reconciled in the absence of global arrangements on the recognition of the results of testing OSI products. In order to identify a way to proceed, the Information Technology Resources Support Group (ITRSG) recommended that the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (lEC) should organize an International Workshop on the Worldwide Recognition of OSI Test Results. The workshop was attended by almost 150 participants and there were 25 speakers coming from a wide range of organizations worldwide, with a variety of stakes in the OSI Test Results issues. On the first day, the objectives were presented by Dr. D. Rayner of the U.K. National Physical Laboratory, and tutorials were given on the state of the art in testing, Laboratory accreditation, and certification, followed by government, industry and commercial user positions on objectives. The second day, which was chaired by Mr. Y. Yokoyama of Japanese INTAP explored current practices in testing, laboratory accreditation, and certification, in the different regions throughout the world.