Interoperability

Providing test environments and qualified integration approaches to demonstrate OSS interoperability across borders of any kind

When talking about the quality of OSS and its viability in an industrial context, a central aspect to be considered is the interoperability of systems. Today enterprises and organizations spend about 40% of their IT budget on integration projects. As more and more business processes are spanning multiple administrative and organisational domains, the aspect of ICT interoperability has become a crucial competitive factor. In particular this is true for the OSS domain, which by nature is characterised through vendor independence, competitiveness and a high diversity of software and actors. As part of the QualiPSo project three dimensions of interoperability – technical, semantic and organisational – are distinguished.

• Technical Interoperability Work Package

Technical interoperability includes aspects, such as open interfaces, open standards, data integration and middleware. Technical interoperability is of relevance at different tiers, e.g. interoperability with different access technologies, interoperability with legacy applications and interoperability across different middleware platforms. The focus of this work package is on developing and implementing interoperability test scenarios, test environments and test methodologies in order to identify problems, open issues and potential enhancements concerning interoperability between OSS products and OSS middleware platforms as well as between open and closed source software. Further information is available here -> WP3.1

• Semantic Interoperability Work Package

Semantic interoperability is achieved when the meaning of exchanged information is understood by applications and services. Achieving semantic interoperability, i.e. resolving semantic heterogeneity, today is seen as one of the biggest challenges for the integration of information systems. Basically, this is due to the fact that meaning changes by context and over time and different requirements in different domains result in different information models. The focus of this work package is on identifying semantic integration approaches, analysing semantic capabilities of OSS middleware and OSS forges, developing exemplary platform enhancements (proof-of-concepts) and performing experiments based on these developments. Further information is available in work package
-> WP3.2

• Organizational Interoperability Work Package

Organisational interoperability is about the collaboration of organisations (companies and administrations) that wish to exchange information and to co-operate despite having different internal structures and processes. The goal of this work package is to analyse organisational aspects that affect inter-working of processes and cross-organisational cooperation. This includes the evaluation of Open Source tools for the modelling and implementation of cross-organisational processes and the development of guidelines for enhanced organisational interoperability. Further information is available in work package -> WP3.3

In summary the QualiPSo interoperability activity identifies interoperability criteria and develops test beds, scenarios, integration components, and forward-looking approaches for advanced interoperability of OSS components as well as between open and closed source software. The QualiPSo interoperability activity is lead by Fraunhofer FOKUS. Further project partners are: ATOS Origin, PSNC, Siemens and European Dynamics. Detailed information about the public results including deliverables and software is available within the three work package sections.

Contact

A3 Activity leader: Dr. Matthias Fluegge – Fraunhofer FOKUS. Email: