European procurement handbook for open systems (OSI) (EPHOS)

EPHOS is the European procurement manual for open systems. The Ephos manual dates back to an EU Council decision in the 1980s to use OSI-compliant products in public administrations. At that time, there were discussions about the use of products with de facto standards, such as TCP/ IP, and those specified according to the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI). In order to create a uniform framework for the European administrations and to ensure interoperability, Ephos was created as a guideline for the administrations, which is constantly adapted to the requirements.

Ephos deals with the topics of data formats, character sets, data transmission, access procedures, electronic data interchange( EDI), directory services, local area networks( LAN), network transitions and conformance tests.