433. Interoperability Assurance for Federated Mission Networking covers the full spectrum of interoperability issues that span technical and procedural aspects. Interoperability Assurance activities support the life-cycle from capability development as interoperability changes are made to operational processes, and technical systems and services.
434. The overall aim of Interoperability Assurance is to give confidence to all parties that processes, products or systems fulfil specified Federated Mission Networking requirements. The value of Interoperability Assurance is the degree of confidence and trust that is established by an impartial and competent assessment.
435. Interoperability Assurance improves information sharing across Mission Networks, eliminates avoidable risks to an acceptable degree and confers error prevention. To guarantee the rapid instantiation of Mission Networks, Interoperability Assurance activities have to be conducted on a regular basis and in advance of instantiating or joining a MN. Parties that have an interest in FMN Interoperability Assurance include, but are not limited to governmental authorities, suppliers, purchasing organisations and users of products and systems.
436. Interoperability Assurance for Federated Mission Networking is based on two components:
Verification of conformity with technical interface standards, and
Validation of the ability to provide end-to-end services in a federated environment in support of specified mission objectives (CIAV Process).
437. For successful Federated Mission Networking, technical interface standards are critical enablers that have to be collectively followed and for which conformity by all participating members is mandatory. Products and systems used for Federated Mission Networking must conform to the standards defined in this Federated Mission Networking Standards Profile. Conformity assessment is an important piece of Federated Mission Networking which is most often carried out by specialist organizations, such as inspection and certification bodies and testing laboratories. Certificates of conformity may relate to all the requirements of a Standard or to selected sections or characteristics only. A certificate of conformity might only state that an implementation had been tested to completion, and provide a list of the errors that were found.
438. Selection of standards bodies and conformity and interoperability resources:
International Telecommunication Union (ITU): http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/C-I
IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization: http://www.ieee-isto.org/ieee-conformity-assessment-program-icap
W3C Standards and Recommendations: https://validator-suite.w3.org/
Distributed Management Task Force: http://www.dmtf.org/conformance
Multilateral Interoperability Programme: https://trac.fkie.fraunhofer.de/MTRS