Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail

 
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13.2. STAR Conformance

STAR guidelines and specifications are voluntary and intended to accelerate and lower the cost of interoperable applications by providing a baseline for systems development teams. Many situations arise that demand exceptions to the standards for interoperability that are described here, but the additional development and support for custom variations from these guidelines have their costs. With this in mind, the STAR member testing activities and checklists are designed to measure conformance for general interoperability sake.

Since there is no certification or branding of STAR transport implementations, the measure of conformance to STAR guidelines is best used as a gap analysis and a starting place for STAR members to develop interacting systems. By reviewing other STAR members' published checklists, one can see the types of decisions that are needed to build a complete trading relationship with that member.

Lack of conformance to a STAR requirement is a starting point for deciding if that requirement is indeed necessary, if it should be implemented, if it can be safely ignored, or if the trading relationship cannot be established. These are decisions that are couched in the business needs between STAR members who need to conduct business. If a requirement is met however, then conformance to STAR guidelines means broader potential for business relationships without message interoperability being a barrier.