The Open Group

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The Open Group is an industry consortium to set vendor- and technology-neutral open standards for computing infrastructure. It was formed when X/Open merged with the Open Software Foundation in 1996. It is most famous as the certifying body for the UNIX trademark.

The consortium advocates a vision of "Boundaryless Information Flow(TM)" to enable access to integrated information within and between enterprises based on open standards and global interoperability. The group sees enterprise architecture to be the key catalyst that organizations can use to make progress towards its vision. Their members include a range of IT buyers and vendors as well as government agencies, for example Capgemini, Fujitsu, Hitachi, HP, IBM, NEC, US Department of Defense, NASA and others.

1 Programs
2 History
3 Inventions and standards
4 See also
5 External links

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Programs

Certification The Open Group is known for its experience in facilitating consensus to develop and evolve standards and best practices. They operate a number of certification programs, including certification for Common Operating Environment (COE) Platform, CORBA, Directory, IT Architects, Linux Standard Base, POSIX, Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF), TOGAF, UNIX, and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP). The Open Group is also the owner of the UNIX trademark.

The organization’s flagship program is the recently launched IT Architect Certification program, which defines a standard for measuring skills and experience of IT architects.

Another program in the enterprise architecture area is their certification of TOGAF practitioners, where they certify professionals in the use of the TOGAF Architecture Development Method (ADM) for producing open architectures. TOGAF, The Open Group Architecture Framework, was developed by The Open Group’s Architecture Forum; it is free to organizations using it for their own internal noncommercial purposes.

Member Forums The Open Group provides a platform for its members to discuss their requirements, and work jointly on development and adoption of industry standards, to facilitate enterprise integration. (Note: Some of The Open Group documents are only available to members, especially when they are under development.) Based on their area of interest, members can join one or more semi-autonomous Forums, which include: Architecture Forum, Grid Enterprise Services Forum, Identity Management Forum, Jericho Forum,Messaging Forum,Enterprise Management and Quality of Service Forum, Platform Forum,Real Time and Embedded Systems Forum, Security Forum, and Universal Data Element Framework Forum. Members come together at The Open Group’s quarterly conferences and member meetings.

Government Programs The Open Group provides services to the government sector - agencies, suppliers, and companies or organizations set up by governments to advance government goals.

Services to Consortia The Open Group also provides a range of services to consortia and organizations, from initial organization set-up and ongoing operational support to collaboration, standards and best practices development, and assistance with technology transfer. They assist organizations with setting business objectives, strategy and procurement, and also provide certification and test development services.

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History

The Open Group was formed from a merger of the Open Software Foundation (OSF) and X/Open. In the past, the group was most known for its publication of the Single UNIX Specification paper, which extends the POSIX standards and is the official definition of UNIX.

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