The Internet of Things - GS1 France & Afnic major contributors to the ONS 2.0

The ONS 2.0 standard, the result of a partnership initiated in 2008 between GS1 France and Afnic, is now available to users. The publication of the standard provides new opportunities for companies that develop services for connecting objects to the Internet.

GS1 France and Afnic have played a leading role in the development of this new version of the standard (also called “a federated ONS”*), which was ratified and published in December 2012. On the one hand, the international standardization group for ONS 2.0 was co-chaired by GS1 France, and on the other, Afnic was the editor of the compliance specification and played an active role in prototype testing.

The respective expertise of each organization has therefore enabled the design of interoperable industrial information systems and innovative services based on the Internet of Things (IoT).

The French WINGS consortium, a driving force in the standardization work for the Object Name Service

The partnership between GS1 France and Afnic has expanded to include several major players in academic and industrial research – INRIA UPMC, GREYC and Orange Labs – enabling the set-up of a French consortium of research laboratories. Between 2009 and 2012, the consortium headed the WINGS project, backed by the French National Research Agency (ANR) and the Delegation on the Uses of the Internet (DUI). The work on the WINGS project had goals closely related to the validation of a new “federated” ONS architecture that would be both efficient and sustainable, and help develop a new ONS 2.0 standard on the basis of the results of the experimental work.

Next step: supporting the industrial deployment and use of the ONS

With the publication of the standard, GS1 France and Afnic wish to continue their efforts to support the IoT ecosystem in adopting the Object Name Service. The ONS will help the emergence of a new generation of services for use by consumers and companies alike, such as identifying the origin and nature of products, determining the traceability of objects in real time, combating counterfeiting, or organizing the recall of products…

For Bernard Benhamou, Delegate for Internet Usage with the French Ministry of the Digital Economy and the French Ministry of Research:

“The development of the “federated” ONS 2.0 standard by Afnic and GS1 is a crucial step in the development of the Internet of Things. The technology will no doubt become essential for new generations of services related to connected objects in France and Europe. We are pleased to have played a role in making the project possible, which will establish a European governance for the Internet of Things.”

• Find out more about the new ONS 2.0 standard
• Find out more about the Wings project
• Find out more about GS1 France

* Decentralized architecture compliant with the principles of openness and interoperability of the Internet on a global scale.