1 ISO/IEC 9646 specifies a general methodology for test-ing the conformance of products to International Standards or CCITT Recommendations that specify OSI protocols which the products are claimed to implement. The methodology also applies to testing conformance to an International Stand-ard or CCITT Recommendation that specifies a transfer syn-tax to the extent that can be determined by testing it in com-bination with a specific OSI protocol.
2 The contents of ISO/IEC 9646 are also, in principle, appli-cable to conformance testing for ISDN two-party protocols.
3 ISO/IEC 9646 is applicable to the different phases of the conformance testing process, these phases being character-ized by three major activities. These activities are
a) the specification of abstract test suites for particular OSI protocols;
b) realization of the means of executing specific test suites;
c) the conformance assessment process carried out by a test laboratory for a specific client, culminating in the pro-duction of a Protocol Conformance Test Report, which gives the results in terms of the protocol specification and test suite used.
ISO/IEC 9646 is structured into five separate parts, each of which, apart from part 1, is applicable to just one of these activities.
This part of ISO/IEC 9646 is applicable to all three activities, providing tutorial introductory material, together with defini-tions of common terms and concepts.
NOTE - ISO/IEC 9646-2 deals with the requirements and guidance for the specification of abstract test suites, independent of test nota-tion. ISO/IEC 9646-3 defines the recommended test notation. ISO/ I EC 9646-4 deals with requirements and guidance for realization of the Means of Testing, and ISO/IEC 9646-5 deals with requirements and guidance for test laboratories and their clients for the conform-ance assessment process.
4 ISO/IEC 9646 specifies the requirements for and gives guidance on the procedures to be followed in OSI conform-ance testing.
5 ISO/IEC 9646 includes only such information as is nec-essary to meet the following objectives:
a) to achieve an adequate level of confidence in the tests as a guide to conformance;
b) to achieve comparability between the results of the cor-responding tests on a particular OSI implementation applied in different places at different times;
c) to facilitate communication between the parties respon-sible for the activities described in 1.3 above for parts 2 to 5.
6 This part of ISO/IEC 9646 includes tutorial introductory material which provides
a) an exposition of the meaning of conformance in the context of OSI;
b) a description of the major categories of conformance tests;
c) an introduction to the conformance assessment proc-ess;
d) an introduction to the Abstract Test Methods and their applicability;
e) an introduction to the concepts of test suite design.
In addition, this part describes the relationship between the other parts of ISO/IEC 9646 and the activities involved in conformance testing, and introduces the concept of compli-ance with respect to the other parts of ISO/IEC 9646.
7 The following are outside the scope of ISO/IEC 9646:
a) certification, an administrative procedure which may follow conformance testing;
b) requirements for procurement and contracts;
c) testing by means of test methods which are specific to particular applications, protocols or systems;
d) testing of non-protocol conformance requirements;
e) test methods that involve more than two end-systems communicating together.
NOTE - ISO/IEC 9646 does not apply fully to Physical layer proto-cols. Nevertheless, many of the concepts apply to all protocols.
DS/EN 29 646-1:1992 history
1994DS/EN 29 646-5/AC:1994 Information technology - Open Systems Interconnection - Conformance testing methodology and framework - Part 5: Requirements on test laboratories and clients for the conformance assessment process
1993DS/EN 29 946:1993 Manipulating industrial robots - Presentation of characteristics
1993DS/EN 29 787:1993 Manipulating industrial robots - Coordinate systems and motions
1992DS/EN 29 983:1992 Information processing systems - Designation of unrecorded flexible disk cartridges
1992DS/EN 29 646-5:1992 Information technology - Open Systems Interconnection - Conformance testing methodology and framework - Part 5: Requirements on test laboratories and clients for the conformance assessment process
1992DS/EN 29 646-2:1992 Information technology - Open Systems Interconnection - Conformance testing methodology and framework - Part 2: Abstract test suite specification
1992DS/EN 29 646-1:1992 Information technology - Open Systems Interconnection - Conformance testing methodology and framework - Part 1: General concepts
1992DS/EN 29 539:1992 Materials for equipment used in gas welding, cutting and allied processes
1992DS/EN 29 529-2:1992 Information processing systems - Data interchange on 90 mm (3,5 in) flexible disk cartridges using modified frequency modulation recording at 15 916 ftprad, on 80 tracks on each side - Part 2: Track format
1992DS/EN 29 529-1:1992 Information processing systems - Data interchange on 90 mm (3,5 in) flexible disk cartridges using modified frequency modulation recording at 15 916 ftprad, on 80 tracks on each side - Part 1: Dimensional, physical and magnetic characteristics
1991DS/EN 29 592-3:1991 Information processing systems - Computer graphics - Programmer's Hierarchical Interactive Graphics System (PHIGS) - Part 3: Clear-text encoding of archive file
1991DS/EN 29 592-2:1991 Information processing systems - Computer graphics - Programmer's Hierarchical Interactive Graphics System (PHIGS) - Part 2: Archive file format
1991DS/EN 29 592-1:1991 Information processing systems - Computer graphics - Programmer's Hierarchical Interactive Graphics System (PHIGS) - Part 1: Functional description