BIAN members and the broader community that are using the BIAN standard often inquire after both the definition and implementation of some measure of alignment and/or certification to the standard. As ‘critical mass’ in the content of the standard has only been achieved recently there is limited experience on which to base an appropriate approach to certification. The current position on compliance/certification can be considered for three aspects:

• For Architects – an approach is taking shape where training is currently based on the series of BIAN How To Guides and testing is through multiple choice questionnaires. As the training and tests are refined it may be that two levels of certification are defined – the highest covers the complete theory and principles behind the standard. A second level tests only the expertise needed to correctly interpret the standard in different deployment scenarios.
• For Products – the basis for certification will reflect how the product aligns to the Service Domain partitions and supports their service interfaces. The challenge here is that most products will most likely combine combinations of ‘Service Domains’ and without knowing the nature of these combinations and what it means for the external access to service operations it is not possible to define alignment precisely. The proposed development of an application agnostic technology overlay to the BIAN Service Landscape will hopefully add clarity here.
• For Companies – this is the least precise of the three certification views as it relates to the extent that an organization has adopted and leveraged the standard in the way it develops either solutions and/or operates its application portfolio. As there are many possible factors that relate to the level or maturity of adoption a formal definition of alignment is unlikely to emerge until many organization have built up significant experience in the adoption of the standard.

At this time, BIAN 'Certification' is in development and not available at any level.