ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 32 Data management and interchange Plenary highlights

On 13^th June, the JTC 1/SC 32 Plenary opened in Berlin, Germany, with a welcome and greetings by the SC 32 Chair, Karl Schendel, and the host German Institute for Standardization (DIN). After two years of meeting on-line only, this was the first time SC 32 met in a hybrid setting (with some delegates attending in-person and others virtual). DIN was a great host, and the facilities were exceptional to make the meeting almost seamless.

The plenary agenda contained three main topics under consideration:

1)    Further progression and updates to the SC 32 standards projects,

2)    Evangelizing the work of SC 32 through JTC 1info.org, and

3)    Liaison activities and collaboration with the SC 32 community.

The highlights and outcomes of the plenary includes further progression of a few main topic areas.

The progression of all parts in the updates of ISO/IEC 9075 series - Database language SQL. A large amount of work was accomplished to finalize the disposition of the comments from the committee draft (CD) stage.

A new project (ISO/IEC 198583-26) was requested to develop a standard on XML representation of the ISO/IEC11179-3 Information technology - Metadata registries (MDR) - Part 3: Metamodel for registry common facilities.

Amendments were requested for some of the ISO/IEC 19763 parts (Metamodel framework for interoperability) as there was an identified need to align the ISO/IEC 19763 series with the updated to 11179 series (Metadata registries (MDR)).

A draft input was developed for the evangelizing the work of SC 32 on JTC1info.org.

SC 32 closed the plenary on 17^th June with its appreciation to all the attendees and participants in SC 32. SC 32 gave a few special appreciations to Don Deutsch and Keith Gordon as their pending retirement. In addition, SC 32 also gave a special appreciation to Jim Melton for his longevity and dedication as the project editor for SQL standardization.

The next plenary is planned to take place in June 2023 in the U.S.

Interested in getting involved in the SC 32 standardization activities mentioned above and others related to data management and interchange? The best way to participate is to join the INCITS Technical Committee on Data Management, the U.S. TAG to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 32. Find out more information on membership in INCITS Data Management here: https://www.incits.org/participation/membership-info.

INCITS Data Management develops standards for database languages and metadata in the areas assigned to JTC 1/SC 32. SC 32 provides enabling technologies to promote harmonization of data management facilities across sector-specific areas, and standards for data management within and among local and distributed information systems environments.  Specifically, SC 32 standards include:

• Languages, services, and protocols for persistent storage, concurrent access, concurrent update, and interchange of data;
• Reference models and frameworks for the coordination of existing and emerging standards;
• Definition of data domains, data types, and data structures, and their associated semantics;
• Methods, languages, services, and protocols to structure, organize, and register metadata and other information resources associated with data sharing, data semantics, and interoperability, including electronic commerce.

SC 32 is organized into four Working Groups, each responsible for a major component of the Subcommittee’s mission:

• WG 1 (eBusiness) responsibilities include standards related to e-Business.
• WG 2 (MetaData) defines standards for metadata.
• WG 3 (Database languages) is responsible for creating, maintaining, and extending database language standards.
• WG 6 (Data usage) develops standards focused on governing the ways in which data is used in open environments.