The NATO Interoperability Standards and Profiles (NISP) is developed by the NATO Consultation, Command and Control (C3) Board Interoperability Profiles Capability Team (IP CaT).
The included interoperability standards and profiles (Volume 2) are mandatory for use in NATO common funded Communications and Information Systems (CIS). Volume 3 contains candidate standards and profiles.
In case of conflict between any recommended non-NATO standard and relevant NATO standard, the definition of the latter prevails.
NISP gives guidelines to capability planners, programme managers and test managers for NATO common funded systems in the short or mid-term timeframes.
The NISP prescribes the necessary technical standards and profiles to achieve interoperability of Communications and Information Systems in support of NATO's missions and operations. In accordance with the Alliance C3 Strategy (ref. C-M(2014)0016) all NATO Enterprise (ref. C-M(2014)0061) entities shall adhere to the NISP mandatory standards and profiles in volume 2.
Other activities, that assure interoperability within the alliance should list their profiles in the NISP.
The intended audience of the NISP are all stakeholders in the NATO Enterprise, and Allied and Partner nations involved in development, implementation, lifecycle management, and transformation to a federated environment.
There are specific viewpoints that are mapped to the NISP structure. NISP gives guidelines to:
capability planners involved in NDPP and NATO led initiatives
programme managers for building NATO common funded systems
test managers for their respective test events (such as CWIX, CIAV, etc.)
national planning and programme managers for their national initiatives
Specific NATO or national views to the NISP, based on data export to external planning and management systems will be possible upon delivery of the NISP ArchiMate-based Exchange Specification in 2021.
The structure of the NISP is organized to list and categorize the standards and profiles according to their usage in NATO. It contains three volumes:
Volume 1: NATO Interoperability Standards and Profiles - Introduction: This volume introduces basic concepts, provides the management framework for the configuration control of the NISP and the process for handling Request for Change (RFC). It includes also guidance on development of interoperability profiles.
Volume 2: Agreed Interoperability Standards and Profiles: This volume lists agreed interoperability standards and profiles, mandatory for NATO common funded systems. These should support NATO and National systems today and new systems actually under procurement or specification.
Volume 3: Candidate Interoperability Standards and Profiles: This Volume provides Standards and Interoperability Profiles for programmes to start in 1 to 2 years.
Volume 2 is normative for NATO common funded systems and Volume 3 is informative.