ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25
Interconnection of information technology equipment
August 2024
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25 Interconnection of information technology equipment is a standardization subcommittee of the Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), which develops and facilitates standards within the field of interconnection of information technology equipment. The secretariat of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25 is held by Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) located in Berlin, Germany.
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25 was formed in 1989 after the creation of ISO/IEC JTC 1. When ISO and IEC decided to create the joint technical committee, JTC 1, in 1988, there was a reorganization of the structure. Eventually in 1989, IEC TC 83: Information technology equipment and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 13: Interconnection of equipment, were joined to form the current subcommittee, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25: Interconnection of information technology equipment. Later on, SC 25 also integrated the standardization activities of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 26 Microprocessor systems, in its WG 4..
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25 works on standardization of microprocessor systems, interfaces, protocols, architectures and associated interconnecting media for information technology equipment and networks to support embedded and distributed computing environments, storage systems and other input/output components.
Standards for home and building electronic systems in residential and commercial environments to support interworking devices (IoT-related) and applications such as energy management, environmental control, lighting, and security.
Cabling system standards for information and communication technology (ICT), in all types of residential, commercial and industrial environments for the design, planning and installation, test procedures, automated infrastructure management systems and remote powering.
JTC 1/SC 25 standards reference IEC standards for cables, waveguides and connectors.
It is very important for the success of SC 25 work to cooperate with other standard bodies and organizations to keep up to date to newest developments and resulting user and customer requirements. Thus, SC 25 has intensive relationships to SC 27 (Information Security), SC 41 (IoT), ITU-T and IEEE and other more.
With the growing importance of data networking and automation in the industry but furthermore in our entire life SC 25 takes care for additional aspects in international standardization as network security, power consumption and efficiency as well as sustainability.
To do so SC 25 has been organized in four working groups (WGs) addressing specific items of data networking and interfaces:
- WG 1 – Home Electronic Systems
- WG 3 – Customer Premises Cabling
- WG 4 – Interconnection of Computer Systems and Attached Equipment
- WG 5 – Taxonomy and Terminology of Intelligent Homes
The current work programme of SC 25 can be found here: www.iec.ch/jtc1-sc25
Working groups in SC 25
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25/WG 1
HOME ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS
WG 1 is responsible for the Home Electronic System (HES) family of more than 50 standards. WG 1 develops standards for the interconnection of electrical and electronic equipment and products in homes and small buildings to provide applications such as energy management, comfort control using HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) equipment, lighting, security, etc.
The primary markets for WG 1 standards are developers, manufacturers, and installers of these products and related services.
WG 1 standards facilitate consumer electronic products, devices, and services to interoperate or to operate, where feasible, as a single coherent system with a common user interface. This system benefits all stakeholders including product developers, manufacturers, service providers, installers, utilities, and consumers. HES consists of a network of networks that enables interoperation among consumer products, sensors, actuators, controllers, and user interfaces in homes and buildings.
WG 1 is pursuing projects that foster seamless delivery of applications linking homes, apartments, enterprises, and public networks. Standards for remote access and management of home equipment are being developed. A common user interface among heterogeneous home systems is under development. Applications of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to energy management are being specified to create an environment responsive automatically to user preferences for comfort and economy.
Homes are made intelligent with interconnected sensors, actuators, user interfaces, and controllers, which may be embedded in smart consumer appliances. The interconnection of public networks with home networks poses cybersecurity risks for consumer privacy, safety, and security, which are being addressed.
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25/WG 3
CUSTOMER PREMISES CABLING
WG 3 is working on generic cabling system standards and related topics.
The previously independent standards for office, industrial, homes and data centres plus a new standard on distributed building services have been brought into a series of ISO/IEC 11801 standards to improve the technical coherence of their contents and ease future maintenance. In addition, Technical Specifications and Technical Reports address specific topics related to ISO/IEC 11801 series. Currently, Amendments to ISO/IEC 11801 series on Single Pair Ethernet cabling to support generic IoT and IIoT applications are in preparation.
Other activities address the planning and installation of IT cabling (ISO/IEC 14763-2), the measurement of installed optical fibre cabling (ISO/IEC 14763-3), the measurement of specific balanced cabling configurations (ISO/IEC 14763-4), sustainability aspects of IT cabling (project ISO/IEC 14763-5), automated infrastructure management systems (ISO/IEC 18598), physical network security (project ISO/IEC 24383), cabling requirements for remote powering of terminal equipment (ISO/IEC TS 29125) and telecommunications bonding networks for buildings and other structures (ISO/IEC 30129).
A new project, ISO/IEC 14763-6, will address the skills required by designers, planners and in particular installers of ICT cabling systems to provide a set of commonly agreed minimum requirements for curricula for education and training programs.
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25/WG 4
INTERCONNECTION OF COMPUTER SYSTEMS AND ATTACHED EQUIPMENT
WG 4 standards are used in almost every computing platform around the world. WG4 works on Standardization of microprocessor systems and of interfaces and protocols for the interconnection of computer systems and computer peripheral equipment like fiber channel, SCSI and storage interfaces However, standardization work relies heavily on work done within the US national body with the support and involvement of multinational corporations.
WG 4 is responsible for:
- continuing to enhance the SCSI architecture (SAM), command set standards (SBC, SCC, SFSC, SPC, SSC, MMC, SMC, SES, ADT, ADC, OSD, RBC, and ZBC), transports (Parallel SCSI (SPI), SAS, SBP, SPL, iSCSI, SCSI Express (SOP and PQI), UAS, FCP, SSA, ADI, SAT, SRP and IEEE 1394), and enhancing SAS speeds;
- continuing to enhance the ATA command set and the SATA command set (ACS). Also included, are the Enhanced Disk Drive services (EDD), the Zoned Device ATA Command set (ZAC), the ATA Architecture model (AAM), the ATA Parallel transport model (APT), and the ATA Serial transport model (AST);
- continuing to enhance the Standards related to the Fibre Channel transport (FC-PI, FC- BB, FC-SB, FC-SP, FC-FS, FC-LS, FC-GS, FC-SW, FC-NVMe, and FC-RDMA);
and maintaining several stable standards.
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25/WG 5
TAXONOMY AND TERMINOLOGY
The project team (PT TT) was established after JTC 1 asked SC 25 to take the lead in coordinating the standardization activities for intelligent homes and held its first meeting in the year 2007. In 2021 the project team was converted into a working group (WG 5), to work on two projects: one on taxonomy (Information technology – Intelligent homes – Taxonomy of specifications) and the other on terminology (Information technology – Terminology for intelligent homes). These are expected to greatly help SC 25 in their co-ordination activities.
The Taxonomy project consists of two parts. The first part (ISO/IEC TR 29107-1 Information technology – Intelligent homes – Taxonomy of specifications – Part 1: The taxonomy method) describes the taxonomy scheme by which specifications are characterized, and the second provides tables listing the specifications according to this scheme.
The Terminology project handles terms and definitions for intelligent homes. It collects terms and definitions from specifications not only from JTC 1 but also from other standards. When a term has more than one definition, these definitions are sorted according to quality, and for terms with no appropriate definition found, new definitions are created.
JTC 1/SC 25 MEETINGS:
JTC 1/SC 25 Beijing, China, September 2014
JTC 1/SC 25 in Milano, Italy, September 2015
JTC 1/SC 25 in Reutlingen, Germany, September 2016
JTC 1/SC 25 in Bruges, Belgium, September 2017
JTC 1 / SC 25 in Falls Church, Virginia, USA, September 2018.
JTC 1 / SC 25 in Nagasaki, Japan, September 2019
JTC 1 / SC 25 as online meeting, September 2020
JTC 1 / SC 25 as online meeting, September 2021
JTC 1 / SC 25 as online meeting, September 2022
JTC 1 / SC 25 in Berlin, Germany, October 2023
JTC 1 / SC 25 in Yamagata, Japan, September 2024
Participating countries 29
Observer Countries 18
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25
Secretariat DIN Germany
DIN Deutsches Institut für Normung e.V.
Am DIN-Platz
Burggrafenstrasse 6
D-10787 Berlin
Germany
Tel: +49 30 26 01-0
Fax: +49 30 26 01 12 31
Email: directorate.international@din.de
Web: http://www.din.de
Secretariat direct:
Mr Marco Peter Email: marco.peter@zvei.org