Introduction to T10

T10 is a Technical Committee of the InterNational Committee on Information Technology Standards (INCITS, pronounced "insights"). INCITS is accredited by, and operates under rules that are approved by, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). These rules are designed to insure that voluntary standards are developed by the consensus of industry groups. INCITS develops Information Processing System standards, while ANSI approves the process under which they are developed and publishes them. ANSI also serves as the representative for the United States on Joint Technical Committee - 1 (JTC-1) of the International Standards Organization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC).

T10 operates under INCITS and is responsible for SCSI Storage Interfaces. Its principal work is the Small Computer System Interface (SCSI), including the family of SCSI-3 projects. Anyone "directly and materially affected" is welcome to participate on T10 (essentially, this amounts to anyone interested in T10's work).

T10 is responsible for SCSI architecture standards (SAM, SAM-2, SAM-3, and SAM-4), which are used by SCSI, SAS, Fibre Channel, SSA, and IEEE 1394.

T10 is also responsible for many SCSI command set standards (e.g., SPC-4, SBC- 3, SSC-3, MMC-6, SMC-3, OSD-2, RBC, etc.). These standards are used by almost all modern I/O interfaces, including SCSI, SAS, Fibre Channel, SSA, IEEE 1394, USB, and ATAPI (ATA).

The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) is the Secretariat for INCITS. ITI charges a fee for membership in T10 to cover the INCITS Secretariat's operating costs. The membership classes and their Service Fees (beginning in 2008) are:

T10 Advisory (non-voting) Members: $1200 per year
Anyone can be an Advisory member -- No attendance is necessary. This fee includes unlimited Alternate Advisory members.

T10 Principal (voting) Members: $1200 per year
There is only one Principal allowed per organization.
This fee includes unlimited Alternate members. Certain attendance rules apply to obtain and maintain principal membership.

The above fees include ANSI's International Program Fee which supports maintaining Secretariats for various ISO/IEC committees, including JTC 1.

In addition to the above fees, there is a Subscription Fee, which varies from year to year, to cover the cost of copying and mailing T10 documents. The 2008 Electronic (CD-ROM) Subscription Fee is $300.00 for domestic ($400 international). You may elect to receive a personal use subscription to CD_Access for $480.00 domestic ($580.00 international).

To subscribe, fill out a Membership Form and mail it along with your check or credit card number to the INCITS Secretariat. Or you can call Barbara Bennett in the INCITS Secretariat office at 202-626-5743 (Fax: 202-638-4922, Email: bbennett@itic.org). (An electronic copy of the Membership form is available by ftp from ftp.t10.org/t10/mem_form.txt.)

T10 meets 5 or 6 times per year at various locations throughout the country. These plenary meetings are scheduled more than a year in advance. In addition, one or more ad hoc meetings (usually called working group meetings) are scheduled during the plenary meeting weeks (and sometimes between plenary meetings). (Meeting schedule information is available on the T10 web site at: http://www.t10.org/meeting.htm.)

If you would like to attend an T10 meeting, you do not need to "register" with the committee -- just show up at the designated hotel. When making room reservations, mention T10 for the group room rate.

(This page was last updated 2008/06/19)

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For more information on T10 or if you have comments on this page contact the T10 Officers