Plugtest

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A plugtest or plugfest is an event based on a certain technical standard where the designers of electronic equipment or software test the interoperability of their products or designs with those of other manufacturers. It could be literally plugging company A's cable into company B's socket, or a more elaborate test resembling a realistic scenario.

The technical goal is twofold: check compliance to the standard, and test the effectiveness of the standard. The latter could be the case when the standard is ambiguous. A simplified example is: the width of a plug is prescribed but vendors use different lengths.

Plugtests can be formal and have public test scores or informal and private. Besides helping vendors improve their interoperability, plugtests help create awareness about the standard and can improve transparency on compliancy. [1]

Examples

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Small Computer System Interface is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices, best known for its use with storage devices such as hard disk drives. SCSI was introduced in the 1980s and has seen widespread use on servers and high-end workstations, with new SCSI standards being published as recently as SAS-4 in 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interoperability</span> Ability of systems to work with each other

Interoperability is a characteristic of a product or system to work with other products or systems. While the term was initially defined for information technology or systems engineering services to allow for information exchange, a broader definition takes into account social, political, and organizational factors that impact system-to-system performance.

Internet Small Computer Systems Interface or iSCSI is an Internet Protocol-based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. iSCSI provides block-level access to storage devices by carrying SCSI commands over a TCP/IP network. iSCSI facilitates data transfers over intranets and to manage storage over long distances. It can be used to transmit data over local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), or the Internet and can enable location-independent data storage and retrieval.

Fibre Channel (FC) is a high-speed data transfer protocol providing in-order, lossless delivery of raw block data. Fibre Channel is primarily used to connect computer data storage to servers in storage area networks (SAN) in commercial data centers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SATA</span> Computer bus interface for storage devices

SATA is a computer bus interface that connects host bus adapters to mass storage devices such as hard disk drives, optical drives, and solid-state drives. Serial ATA succeeded the earlier Parallel ATA (PATA) standard to become the predominant interface for storage devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Serial Attached SCSI</span> Point-to-point serial protocol for enterprise storage

In computing, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is a point-to-point serial protocol that moves data to and from computer-storage devices such as hard disk drives and tape drives. SAS replaces the older Parallel SCSI bus technology that first appeared in the mid-1980s. SAS, like its predecessor, uses the standard SCSI command set. SAS offers optional compatibility with Serial ATA (SATA), versions 2 and later. This allows the connection of SATA drives to most SAS backplanes or controllers. The reverse, connecting SAS drives to SATA backplanes, is not possible.

The Storage Management Initiative Specification, commonly called SMI-S, is a computer data storage management standard developed and maintained by the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA). It has also been ratified as an ISO standard. SMI-S is based upon the Common Information Model and the Web-Based Enterprise Management standards defined by the Distributed Management Task Force, which define management functionality via HTTP. The most recent approved version of SMI-S is available on the SNIA website.

A SCSI connector is used to connect computer parts that use a system called SCSI to communicate with each other. Generally, two connectors, designated male and female, plug together to form a connection which allows two components, such as a computer and a disk drive, to communicate with each other. SCSI connectors can be electrical connectors or optical connectors. There have been a large variety of SCSI connectors in use at one time or another in the computer industry. Twenty-five years of evolution and three major revisions of the standards resulted in requirements for Parallel SCSI connectors that could handle an 8, 16 or 32 bit wide bus running at 5, 10 or 20 megatransfer/s, with conventional or differential signaling. Serial SCSI added another three transport types, each with one or more connector types. Manufacturers have frequently chosen connectors based on factors of size, cost, or convenience at the expense of compatibility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parallel SCSI</span> Original SCSI storage interface

Parallel SCSI is the earliest of the interface implementations in the SCSI family. SPI is a parallel bus; there is one set of electrical connections stretching from one end of the SCSI bus to the other. A SCSI device attaches to the bus but does not interrupt it. Both ends of the bus must be terminated.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory</span> Independent test facility

The University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) is an independent test facility that provides interoperability and standards conformance testing for networking, telecommunications, data storage, and consumer technology products.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Continua Health Alliance</span>

Continua Health Alliance is an international non-profit, open industry group of nearly 240 healthcare providers, communications, medical, and fitness device companies. Continua was a founding member of Personal Connected Health Alliance which was launched in February 2014 with other founding members mHealth SUMMIT and HIMSS.

CDMA Certification Forum was the original official authority governing CDMA Device certification. The CCF is an international partnership between network operator and device vendors to maintain and evolve a core global device certification process that helps improve quality through consistent interoperability, conformance and performance testing across the globe. On 31 December 2014, CCF voted to hand all its certification responsibilities to the Global Certification Forum (GCF).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Storage area network</span> Network which provides access to consolidated, block-level data storage

A storage area network (SAN) or storage network is a computer network which provides access to consolidated, block-level data storage. SANs are primarily used to access data storage devices, such as disk arrays and tape libraries from servers so that the devices appear to the operating system as direct-attached storage. A SAN typically is a dedicated network of storage devices not accessible through the local area network (LAN).

iSCSI conformance testing is testing to determine whether an iSCSI Initiator/Target meets the iSCSI standard.

RFID is a wireless technology supported by many different vendors for tags and readers. In order to ensure global operability of the products multiple test standards have been developed. Furthermore, standardization organizations like ETSI organize RFID Plugtests, where products from multiple vendors are tested against each other in order to ensure interoperability.

CIPURSE is an open security standard for transit fare collection systems. It makes use of smart card technologies and additional security measures.

Medical device connectivity is the establishment and maintenance of a connection through which data is transferred between a medical device, such as a patient monitor, and an information system. The term is used interchangeably with biomedical device connectivity or biomedical device integration. By eliminating the need for manual data entry, potential benefits include faster and more frequent data updates, diminished human error, and improved workflow efficiency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OPEN Alliance SIG</span>

The OPEN Alliance is a non-profit, special interest group (SIG) of mainly automotive industry and technology providers collaborating to encourage wide scale adoption of Ethernet-based communication as the standard in automotive networking applications.

Avnu Alliance is a consortium of member companies working together to create an interoperable ecosystem of low-latency, time-synchronized, highly reliable networking devices using the IEEE open standard, Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) and its Pro AV networking protocol, Milan. Avnu Alliance creates comprehensive certification programs to ensure interoperability of network devices. In the Professional Audio Video (AV) industry, Alliance member companies worked together to develop Milan: a standards-based, user-driven deterministic network protocol for professional media, that through certification, assures devices will work together at new levels of convenience, reliability, and functionality. Milan™ is a standards-based deterministic network protocol for real time media. Avnu Members may use the Avnu-certified or Milan-certified logo on devices that pass the conformance tests from Avnu. Not every device based on AVB or TSN is submitted for certification to the Avnu Alliance. The lack of the Avnu logo does not necessarily imply a device is incompatible with other Avnu-certified devices. The Alliance, in conjunction with other complimentary standards bodies and alliances, provides a united network foundation for use in professional AV, automotive, industrial control and consumer segments.

EEBUS is a protocol suite for the Internet of things that aims to standardize the interface between electrical consumers, producers, storages, and (logical) managing entities. It builds on Internet Protocol and related standards and is meant to be highly generic, cross-domain applicable, open, and free to the public. While its main area of application is the Energy demand management, data exchange, and control of appliances it is also specified for Home automation. A business logic is not specified by EEBUS. The EEBus Initiative e.V. is the non-profit association that manages and supports the standardization of EEBUS.

References

  1. Folmer, Erwin and Punter, Matthijs (2011) Management and Development Model for Open Standards (BOMOS) version 2. Programmabureau NOiV, The Hague, Netherlands.
  2. 10th Plugfest hosted by the UK Cabinet Office December 2014
  3. "SAS Plugfest Program". SCSI TA. Archived from the original on 2017-10-26. Retrieved 2015-06-19.
  4. "EEBUS: A new open standard for the Internet of Things". 26 June 2017.