Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS)

OASIS is a not-for-profit consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of open standards for the global information society. The consortium produces more Web services standards than any other organization along with standards for security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries.

OASIS is distinguished by its transparent governance and operating procedures. Members themselves set the OASIS technical agenda, using lightweight process expressly designed to promote industry consensus and unite disparate efforts. Completed work is ratified by open ballot. Governance is accountable and unrestricted. Officers of both the OASIS Board of Directors and Technical Advisory Board are chosen by democratic election to serve two-year terms. Consortium leadership is based on individual merit and is not tied to financial contribution, corporate standing, or special appointment.

The consortium hosts two of the most widely respected information portals on XML and Web services standards, Cover Pages and XML.org. OASIS Member Sections include CGM Open, COSL, eGov, Emergency, IDtrust, LegalXML, Open CSA, and Telecom.

Cloud Computing

The source of many of the foundational standards in use today, OASIS sees Cloud Computing as a natural extension of SOA and network management models. The OASIS technical agenda is set by members, many of whom are deeply committed to building Cloud models, profiles, and extensions on existing standards, including:

• Security, access and identity policy standards - eg, OASIS SAML, XACML, SPML, WS-SecurityPolicy, WS-Trust, WS-Federation, KMIP, and ORMS.
• Content, format control and data import/export standards - eg, OASIS ODF, DITA, CMIS, and SDD.
• Registry, repository and directory standards - eg, OASIS ebXML and UDDI.
• SOA methods and models, network management, service quality and introperability - eg, OASIS SCA, SDO, SOA-RM, and BPEL.