National foreword

This British Standard reproduces verbatim ISO 2382-XIV:1978 and implements it as the UK national standard.

This British Standard is published under the direction of the Information Technology Systems Standards Policy Committee which has the responsibility to:

aid enquirers to understand the text;
present to the responsible international committee any enquiries on interpretation, or proposals for change, and keep UK interests informed;
monitor related international and European developments and promulgate them in the UK.

NOTE International and European Standards, as well as overseas standards, are available from BSI Sales Department, BSI, Linford Wood, Milton Keynes, MK14 6LE.

A British Standard does not purport to include all the necessary provisions of a contract. Users of British Standards are responsible for their correct application.

Compliance with a British Standard does not of itself confer immunity from legal obligations.

Summary of pages

This document comprises a front cover, an inside front cover, pages i and ii, the ISO title page, pages ii to viii, pages 1 to 10 and a back cover.

This standard has been updated (see copyright date) and may have had amendments incorporated. This will be indicated in the amendment table on the inside front cover.

Committees responsible for this British Standard

This British Standard was prepared by the Information Technology Systems Standards Policy Committee (IST/-), upon which the following bodies were represented:

Association for Payment Clearing Services

BEAMA Ltd. (GAMBICA)

British Computer Society

British Office Systems and Stationery Federation

British Telecommunications plc

Chartered Institute of Management Accountants

Computing Services Association

Department of Trade and Industry (Information Technology Division)

Department of Trade and Industry (National Physical Laboratory)

EEA (The Electronics and Business Equipment Association)

Electricity Supply Industry in England and Wales

Engineering Employers’ Federation

Engineering Equipment and Materials Users’ Association

HM Customs and Excise

HM Treasury (Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency)

Health and Safety Executive

Information Technology Users’ Standards Association

Institute of Administrative Management

Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators

Institute of Purchasing and Supply

Institution of Electrical Engineers

Inter-universities Computing Committee

Library Association

Ministry of Defence

National Computer Users’ Forum

National Computing Centre Ltd.

National Health Service

Simpler Trade Procedures Board (SITPRO)

Telecommunication Engineering and Manufacturing Association

User Standards Forum for Information Technology (Institute of Data Processing Management)

Coopted member

This British Standard, having been prepared under the direction of the Information Technology Systems Standards Policy Committee, was published under the authority of the Board of BSI and comes into effect on

The following BSI references relate to the work on this standard:

Committee reference IST/- Draft announced in BSI News November 1990

FOREWORD

ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards institutes (ISO member bodies). The work of developing International Standards is carried out through ISO technical committees. Every member body interested in a subject for which a technical committee has been set up has the right to be represented on that committee. International organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO, also take part in the work.

Draft International Standards adopted by the technical committees are circulated to the member bodies for approval before their acceptance as International Standards by the ISO Council.

International Standard ISO 2382/XIV was developed by Technical Committee ISO/TC 97, Computers and information processing, and was circulated to the member bodies in September 1976.

It has been approved by the member bodies of the following countries :

The member body of the following country expressed disapproval of the document on technical grounds :

U.S.A.

Data processing gives rise to numerous international exchanges of both intellectual and material nature. These exchanges often become difficult, either because of the great variety of terms used in various fields or languages to express the same concept, or because of the absence of or the imprecision of useful concepts.

To avoid misunderstanding due to this situation and to facilitate such exchanges, it is advisable to select terms to be used in various languages or in various countries to express the same concept and to establish definitions providing satisfactory equivalents for the various terms in different languages.

In accordance with the directions given to the ISO sub-committee in charge of the Vocabulary, the work on it has been mainly based on the usage to be found in the Vocabulary of information processing^* established and published by the International Federation for Information Processing and the International Computation Centre, and in the USA Standard vocabulary for information processing established, published and revised by the American National Standards Institute. The subcommittee also considered various international documents or drafts issued by ISO Technical Committee 97 and its sub-committees and other international organizations (such as the International Telecommunication Union) and national drafts or standards.

The definitions have been drawn up with the objective of achieving a proper balance between precision and simplicity. The main objective of this Vocabulary is to provide definitions that can be understood to have the same meaning by all concerned. It may thus be felt that some definitions are not sufficiently precise, do not include all cases, do not take into account certain exceptions, or are in conflict with established uses in particular fields of application.

In addition, the Vocabulary consists of several sections prepared over a long period of time and it may be that the preparation of the later sections introduces inconsistencies with the earlier ones.

These imperfections will be eliminated as far as possible in later editions. This procedure allows for immediate publication of needed sections and permits an element of flexibility in the preparation of a comprehensive vocabulary in view of the dynamics of language.

I GENERAL

1.1 Introduction

This section of the Vocabulary (which will comprise some twenty sections) defines major concepts in current use concerning reliability, maintenance and availability in the field of data processing. (Definitions involving statistical notions have been excluded.) See also IEC publication 271, List of basic terms, definitions and related mathematics for reliability.

1.2 Scope

The Vocabulary is intended to facilitate international communication in data processing. It presents in two languages terms and definitions of selected concepts relevant to the field of data processing and identifies relationships between the entries.

In order to facilitate their translation into other languages, the definitions are drafted so as to avoid, as far as possible, any peculiarity attached to a language.

1.3 Field of application

2 PRINCIPLES AND RULES FOLLOWED

2.1 Definition of an entry

2.2 Organization of an entry

2.3 Classification of entries

2.4 Selection of terms and wording of definitions

2.5 Multiple meanings

2.6 Abbreviations

2.7 Use of parentheses

2.8 Use of (square) brackets

2.9 Use of terms printed in italic typeface in definitions and use of asterisks

2.10 Spelling

2.11 Organization of the alphabetical index

3 TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

14 RELIABILITY, MAINTENANCE AND AVAILABILITY

BS ISO 2382-14:1978

Information technology. Vocabulary - Reliability, maintenance and availability

Current, Under Review

Published:

30 Nov 1990