In a world of converging yet diverse technologies, complex ICT systems must communicate and interwork on all levels: this is interoperability.
Interoperability means that users have a much greater choice of products and manufacturers can benefit from the economies of scale that a wider market brings.
Interoperability is therefore a crucial factor in the success of modern technologies, and market demand has ensured that interoperability holds a prominent position in standardisation.
One of the key motives for the development of ICT standards is to facilitate interoperability between products in a multi-vendor, multi-network and multi-service environment.
Complex products and systems are often based on multiple standards from several standards-making organisations, including ETSI, or on requirements published by industrial fora. Collaboration between standards groups is therefore vital.
In addition, standards themselves need to be designed and tested to ensure that products and services complying with them do achieve interoperability.
Testing of products and systems to verify their interoperability is critical to their success – ideally this should take place throughout their development. Eliminating basic interoperability problems at an early stage helps reduce costs and to avoid dissatisfied customers.
A standardised approach to testing is essential if the results are to be trusted.
We have an arsenal of tools and techniques at our disposal. Our Centre for Testing and Interoperability (CTI) provides support to our technical committees in their use.
We include validation activities in our standards-making process. We take account of feedback from validation and testing activities and from routine usage. We use this feedback to update and improve our standards on an ongoing basis. Our Plugtests™ events are one way of validating our standards. They also give developers from different companies the chance to get together to test their implementations and ensure product interoperability.
Standardised conformance or interoperability test specifications are an integral part of our strategy for ensuring interoperability.
As natural languages (English, in the case of our publications) can fall short. We need other ways to describe complex interactions. So, where appropriate, we also use modelling techniques, tools and specialised specification and testing languages.
Our Centre for Testing and Interoperability (CTI) assists our technical committees, the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP™) and the oneM2M Partnership Project. It provides hands-on support on the application of testing and validation techniques in standards-making.
Our brochure ” An Introduction to achieving technical excellence“, introduces the CTI and its work.
The CTI has extensive expertise in:
The CTI’s important task is the planning and development of conformance and interoperability test specifications. Many of these are used in external certification schemes. Examples include those of the Global Certification Forum (GCF) and the DECTTM Forum.
To ensure the quality of the tests, we validate them in various ways:
The first ETSI PlugtestsTM event took place in 1999. Since then, they have proved a valuable tool in the development of global standards.
They serve two main purposes:
They provide essential feedback to our technical committees to help us improve our standards and to accelerate the standards-making process.
They offer engineers a chance to get together to test the interoperability of their implementations – thus potentially reducing a product’s time-to-market.
The benefits of such interoperability testing events include:
Plugtests are organised by our Centre for Testing and Interoperability (CTI). The CTI offers a wide range of services for testing and interoperability.
We organise an average of 8 Plugtests events every year, covering diverse technologies. We work closely with our members to offer a programme of events that responds to market demand.
Who can participate?Participation is open to all companies, organisations and standards groups – whether or not they are ETSI members. Most attendees tend to be vendors or equipment manufacturers.
What are PlugtestsTM events?PlugtestsTM events offer a neutral, vendor‑independent environment to verify interoperability of implementations against relevant standards. All testing activities are protected under a Non‑Disclosure Agreement (NDA).
Where do they take place?Events are organised worldwide. They may be hosted at ETSI premises, at the facilities of members or partners, or at external venues. See upcoming interoperability events in the Calendar of events.
When do they occur and how long do they last?A typical PlugtestsTM event runs for 5 days, though some may continue for several weeks, especially when remote pre‑testing is required.
What can be tested?Implementations may range from early prototypes to fully commercial products—as long as they support the relevant standard(s).
You can also find interoperability events from the past.
We bring extensive expertise and proven experience in delivering PlugtestsTM events across a wide range of telecommunications, Internet, and IT standards. Our support covers both the technical aspects of interoperability testing and the full spectrum of event management services.
For further information, please contact the ETSI Plugtests team.
Specialist Task Forces (STFs) and Testing Task Forces (TTFs) are teams of highly skilled experts, brought together to perform specific technical work. They operate under the direction of one of our technical committees.
They enable us to accelerate the standardisation process in areas of strategic importance and in response to urgent market needs. Check out how to join one of our task forces.
