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ICH Repository
By
participating in the ICH, you can keep a leg up on the rapid advance of technology
through the ICH Repository. Have a look at public elements of the ICH repository
here.
Here's how it works:
After nearly two years of consulting with select IT organizations in select domains,
the ICH has developed an initial set of common
criteria which forms the Core ICH Interoperability Knowledge Base.
The ICH Repository is a self-maintaining and self-validating model, that requires
a reasonable amount of participation to achieve the "critical mass"
necessary to keep current and useful. Until mid 2000, this process has been singularly
supported by a small number of
early adopters and supporters, such as The
OTG, DoD, SAIC, and others. In late 1999, the Office of the Secretary of Defense
evaluated the ICH's potential to play a major contributing role in successfully
addressing DoD interoperability standards, following up with a strong endorsement
encouraging wide participation.
This Knowledge base is available to ICH members who use it according to their
needs: - Solution/Software
providers - These members update the knowledge base with their product offerings
and document "claimed" interoperability features and standards compliance.
Additionally, these members can identify customers who are using their products,
and who can be contacted by other members to obtain 3rd-party validation data
concerning the provider's claims.
- Integrators
- These members use the profile existing architectures using the ICH DCAM modeling
and analysis tool typically as part of an ICH Architecture Baseline program .
These profiles provide additional 3rd-party validation data of which connectivity
features are currently in use between which specific products in specific contexts
and domains. Then the integrators can use the DCAM to experiment with changes
to the baselined architecture to assess inferenced interoperability capabilities
based on information already in the ICH Repository. Integrators are often contracted
by end-users to assist them in leveraging ICH capabilities.
- End-Users
- These members use the ICH Repository to help them identify and assess potential
products for implementation in their domain. By using the ICH Methodology and
the associated Knowledgebase, end-users can narrow down a bewildering array of
advertised products to the much smaller list of products that provide the specific
3rd-party-validated features critically needed in their unique context. This much
smaller list of products that should actually support their context can then be
the focus of more detailed evaluation and/or testing as desired before final selection.
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