Background on NIHRFCs and Standards at NIH
The NIH Architecture Standards Process is concerned with all technical standards that are developed as part of the NIH Enterprise Architecture. In general, a standard is a specification that:
- is stable and well-understood,
- is technically competent,
- has multiple, independent, and interoperable implementations with substantial operational experience, and
- is recognizably useful in some or all parts of NIH.
Guidelines and standards that comprise the Technology Architecture are published as principles, patterns, and bricks. Generally these standards are proposed by domain teams, approved by the Architecture Review Board, and published by the Office of the Chief IT Architect (OCITA).
Another method for documenting architecture standards and best community practices (BCP) is the NIH Requests for Comments (NIHRFC) document series. Any NIH stakeholder can propose a new standard or BCP using this document series.
This NIHRFC series also facilitates information sharing through the informational sub-series.
