Open system standards for applications portability

Federal agencies are under increasing pressure to use information technology to improve efficiency and delivery of services to the public. The need to improve portability and interoperability has resulted in widespread interest in standards such as POSIX (portable operating system interface for computer environments) and GOSIP (government open systems interconnection profile). Although they are important milestones in the effort to achieve portability and interoperability, POSIX and GOSIP are not sufficient to address the full spectrum of needs. A more comprehensive approach is needed to achieve an open systems environment (OSE) that integrates POSIX with GOSIP and provides additional functionality to accommodate the broad range of application requirements. Although the OSE concept is relatively new, it has matured to the point where there is an emerging international consensus on the functionality (i.e. the collection of interfaces, protocols, services, and supporting formats) that should be included in an OSE. Information regarding the OSE concept is presented