ISO (International Organization for Standardization) is a worldwide federation of national standards bodies.ISO is a nongovernmental organization that comprises standards bodies from more than 160 countries, with one standards body representing each member country.

The International Organization for Standardization’s process for creating a new standard starts when industry associations or consumer groups make a request.

ISO  registration consultant then recruits subject matter experts  and industry stakeholders who form a technical committee. The committee goes through two rounds of creating a draft standard and conducts a formal vote on the second draft, which is called the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS).

Popular standards

Some of the most popular ISO standards for information technology include:

Open Systems Interconnection (OSI): Computer manufacturers and telecommunications providers developed this universal reference model for communication protocols in 1983, and ISO later adopted it as a standard.

ISO 27001: This ISO standard provides a six-step process for developing and implementing information security policies and processes.

ISO 17799: This security management standard specifies more than 100 best practices regarding business continuity, access control, asset management and more.

ISO 20000: This ISO standard creates a technical specification and codifies best practices for IT service management.

ISO 31000: This risk management framework standardizes the definition of risk and associated terms and offers guidelines for any person, business or agency.

ISO 12207: This ISO standard creates a consistent lifecycle management process for all software.