The Standards Puzzle

I'd never spent a lot of time analyzing the standards that seemed to pop up everywhere in the IT industry. Like many administrators, I was always occupied with putting out fires with one hand while trying to prevent them with the other. I tended to pick up standards information on an as-needed basis. This behavior continued until I made an expensive mistake: I purchased several PCs not knowing that they lacked a function that my company's network-management application required.

Since then, I've paid more attention to hardware and software standards and whether the device I'm about to purchase complies with those standards. I've also used what I learn about standards to make more informed and, I hope, more intelligent strategic decisions.

If you're considering the merits of migrating to Windows XP, you're probably looking at how your current hardware platforms measure up to XP's minimum system requirements. If you find that you need to upgrade outdated equipment, you should also look at the processes and tools you use to manage this equipment. Because XP and products that conform to the "Designed for Microsoft Windows XP" logo specifications incorporate several industry-standards—based innovations, now is a good time to examine both the Windows Logo Program and the latest industry standards to determine their relevance to your organization's network- and systems-management strategy.

The Windows Logo Program and Industry Standards
Earlier this year, Microsoft released Windows Logo Program System and Device Requirements 2.0 and "Designed for Windows XP" Application Specification 2.0. As the names suggest, hardware and software products must meet the specifications outlined in these programs to get a "Designed for Microsoft Windows XP" logo. According to Microsoft, the logo signifies that the vendor has met the baseline requirements of platform features and quality goals that ensure a good XP experience for the end user. Microsoft also publishes lists of the hardware and software products that meet the specifications.

The Windows Logo Program for Hardware and Windows Logo Program for Software are proprietary standards. Nonetheless, industry standards are integral to both of them, as Figure 1 shows. Windows Logo Program System and Device Requirements 2.0 incorporates more than a dozen industry standards. Microsoft's incorporation of industry standards moves Windows platforms in the direction of greater interoperability, which helps Microsoft penetrate markets that UNIX typically dominates.

Microsoft is an active player in many of the industry standards bodies; thus, it had input into the development of standards that it eventually adopted into the Windows Logo Program. For example, as a member of the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) standards group, Microsoft worked on the Common Information Model (CIM) standard, which is at the core of Microsoft's Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI).

Standards Chaos
Compared with the relatively orderly world of Microsoft's Windows Logo Program, the crowded arena of industry standards is chaotic. The landscape is strewn with organizations, committees, and task forces that often share many of the same members. Forming ad hoc groups to promote a new idea is common, as is the practice of one group adopting and extending a specification that another group developed. It's no wonder that few outside the standards organizations themselves have a comprehensive understanding of the relationships and interactions of the different standards organizations.

The seeming chaos notwithstanding, I'm impressed with the cumulative knowledge and vision of those who work in these groups. The fruits of their efforts are apparent in the IT industry's progress over the past 10 years.

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