Chi standardizza cosa? Organismi di standardizzazione

Esiste una moltitudine di standard di cablaggio IT: EN, IEC, ISO/IEC, TIA e IEEE pubblicano regolarmente standard su cablaggio, componenti, protocolli di trasmissione e test. 

I quattro enti normativi più importanti per le infrastrutture IT sono ISO/IEC, CENELEC, ANSI/TIA e IEEE.

ISO e IEC

ISO - International Organisation for Standardisation - and IEC - International Electrotechnical Commission - publish global standards. The two organisations are independent of each other but work closely together, so there are ISO, IEC and ISO/IEC standards. The European standards body CENELEC harmonises its EN standards with ISO and IEC standards. Sometimes ISO or IEC standards are incorporated into EN standards without any changes. ISO/IEC 11801 largely corresponds to EN 50173. It has adopted the structure of the latter (in most cases it is the other way around).

CENELEC

Il CENELEC pubblica le norme EN valide nell'Unione Europea (UE). Gli enti normativi nazionali dei Paesi dell'UE verificano le norme EN per assicurarsi che possano essere utilizzate nel proprio Paese, adattano le norme EN se necessario e traducono le norme così adattate nella lingua locale. Altri Paesi europei, come la Svizzera, armonizzano le loro norme nazionali con quelle dell'UE, ove ciò sia ragionevole. Le norme EN vengono armonizzate con le norme ISO e IEC. A volte gli standard ISO o IEC vengono incorporati senza modifiche negli standard UE. La norma EN più importante in materia di cablaggio IT è la EN 50173.

ANSI and TIA

In the US TIA – the Telecommunications Industry Association – specifies industry standards. Depending on the importance of such an industry standard, ANSI – the American National Standards Institute – incorporates it into the American national standards. Canada acknowledges many US standards by choice. Strictly speaking, ANSI/TIA standards and TIA Industry Standards are valid only in the USA. As they typically are much more pragmatic than ISO/IEC and EN standards, they are referenced in many projects outside of the US as well. Depending on the standard, American standards developers and standards bodies cooperate with ISO and IEC to harmonize the standards. Unlike ISO and IEC standards that carry the year of publication, ANSI/TIA and TIA standards have a letter after the standard’s number to mark the standard’s issue. The first issue has not letter, the first revision has an ”A”, and so on. “E” to give an example stands for the sixth issue or fifth revision respectively. IT cabling is standardized by ANSI/TIA-568.

IEEE

Strictly speaking, IEEE – the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers – is not a standards body. It stared as an American club of engineers but regards itself now as a global organization. IEEE 802.3 specifies all the different Ethernet variants. Selected IEEE 802.3 standards can be downloaded at no cost after having been available for six months in PDF version. By this, these important standards can be obtained by anyone at no cost, which is important to educational institutions and journalist among others.

The column “Standards in Short” introduces standards that are important for the IT infrastructure, points to revisions and deals with questions on applying standards for network design and installation.