The purchaser's view of functional standards

Abstract

CCTA is a part of the UK Treasury with responsibility for advising central government departments on Information Technology: it provides a central procurement facility which handles about £300 million of business per annum: it concentrates on those tasks which are best carried out at the centre of the UK government administration. UK government policy on OSI, developed and promoted by CCTA, is well established: many departments have strategic plans for using OSI as a cornerstone of their IT projects: previous CCTA papers have described these developments. The development of Functional Standards in Europe was welcomed by CCTA and many other purchasers contemplating OSI. The vast range of options available in the base standards for suppliers to implement and for purchasers to specify made interworking without prior planning an unlikely event. Functional Standards are seen as a significant move in the right direction, but it remains questionable whether they are the complete answer for the purchaser who wishes to acquire interworking products without having the technical capability to understand how this is achieved. The development of MAP and TOP have shown how the users of IT can overcome some of the difficulties of purchasing complex products. The specification of a precise profile for a particular group of users should make life easier for implementors and purchasers alike. Functional Standards can assist in the definition of user profiles and this point will be illustrated by reference to CCTA's GOSIP (Government OSI Profile). GOSIP is designed to meet the needs of administrators and is compatible with TOP.