Interoperability

A definition of interoperability is "the ability to share information and services". Defining the degree to which the information and services are or are not to be shared is a very useful architectural requirement, especially in a complex organisation and/or extended enterprise.

How Interoperability is Used in the ADM

• A. Architecture Vision
  • the nature and security considerations of the information and service exchanges are found using business scenarios.
• B. Business Architecture
  • the information and service exchanges are further defined in business terms.
• C. Data Architectures
  • the content of the information exchanges is detailed using the corporate data and/or information exchange model.
• C. Application Architecture
  • the way that the various applications are to share the information and services is specified
• D. Technology Architecture
  • the appropriate technical mechanisms to permit the information and service exchanges are specified.
• Opportunities & Solutions
  • actual solutions are selected; e.g., Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) packages.
• F. Migration Planning
  • interoperability is logically implemented

Many organisations find it useful to categorise interoperability as follows ^Categories

1. Operational or Business Interoperability - defines how different parts of the enterprise work together at the business level
2. Information Interoperability defines how information is to be shared
3. Technical Interoperability defines how technical services are to be shared or at least connect to one another

From an IT perspective, it is also useful to consider interoperability in a similar vein to Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)

1. Presentation Integration/Interoperability is where a common look-and-feel approach through a common portal-like solution guides the user to the underlying functionality of the set of systems
2. Information Integration/Interoperability is where the corporate information is seamlessly shared between the various corporate applications to achieve, for example, a common set of client information
   Normally this is based upon a commonly accepted corporate ontology and shared services for the structure, quality, access, and security/privacy for the information.
3. Application Integration/Interoperability is where the corporate functionality is integrated and shareable so that the applications are not duplicated (e.g., one change of address service/component; not one for every application) and are seamlessly linked together through functionality such as workflow
   This impacts the business and infrastructure applications and is very closely linked to corporate business process unification/interoperability.
4. Technical Integration/Interoperability includes common methods and shared services for the communication, storage, processing, and access to data primarily in the application platform and communications infrastructure domains