Bottom line, oBIX focuses on interoperability for general facilities devices, while PHYSBITS covers physical-logical management. The Open Security Exchange is a resource for news and guidelines.
The Federal Convergence Experiment
Despite standards advances, wide-scale convergence efforts have thus far been limited. Fewer than 5 percent of AMAG Technology's customers are attempting convergence, according to David Ella, the company's VP of product development. And yet, the federal government has embarked on the largest convergence project in history.
In August 2004, President Bush issued HSPD-12, which mandates, in spirit, a secure and reliable form of identification for more than 5 million federal employees and contractors. The provided ID would control physical and logical access to all federal systems and facilities.
In response to HSPD-12, the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), the federal organization responsible for translating "in spirit" into specific technological requirements, drafted standards that defined how to comply on a technical level. NIST decided to break HSPD-12 into pieces and start with just the ID aspects, which resulted in the FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard) 201 program for PIV (Personal Identity Verification).
