Interoperability
According to the University of Toronto's faculty of information studies, interoperability is difined as
"the ability of multiple systems or components having different hardware and software platforms, data structures, and interfaces to exchange
data with minimal loss of content and functionality."
The Taxonomy Guide
Faculty of Information Studies, University of Toronto
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Background
Since the 1960's the demand for managing information has had researchers focus their efforts on integrating business processes and data. Over time,
several approaches have been implemented in response to the growing need for integration. While centralised systems offer some means of integration,
the reality is that not all information can be centralised. Therefore, the challenge facing organisations today is to find ways to integrate information from
distributed systems.
Existing Technologies
Depending on one's need, there are technologies available to achieve interoperability. Some of these technologies listed below are being used
in different contexts.
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COM
SOAP (XLM / RPC)
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.NET (REMORING)
WEB SERVER
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JAVA (JINI / RMI)
CORBA
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Considering the definition of interoperability at the top of this page, it is imperative that the interoperability technology possess the following
attributes:
- Multi platform
- Multi language (portability)
- Homogeneous data format
While these attributes may contribute to interoperability, for the technology to be functional it must also provide data security, optimum performance,
robustness and implementation flexibility.
These existing technologies listed above possess some of these attributes, each in its own way and to different extent. For instance, a Web Server may be
multi platform and multi language, however it may not provide a strong security component and performance may have a weakness for large volume data transfer.
COM on the other hand, provides security and performance but it is not multi platform.
As mentioned earlier, which technology should be used depends on the level of interoperability required.
Universal and Modular Approach
In order to overcome some shortcoming in existing interoperability technologies, Sunertek has developed an approach using available open source
technologies to implement every attribute listed above, as modular components. This provides flexibility to address specific needs for achieving interoperability.
Also, it makes the data model, which is the corner stone of interoperability, interchangeable.
This approach is not meant to replace the existing interoperability technologies referred to on this page. It provide the means to exchange data
regardless of its type and origin by using available tools, applied to specific components along the process of data transfer. This ensure that interoperability
is achieved using the most appropriate solution.
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