Improving arable farm enterprise integration – Review of existing technologies and practices from a farmer’s perspective

Advancement of farming by facilitating collaboration : reference architectures and models for farm software ecosystems

“…(i) smooth data handling and seamless data exchange between ICT Components (Kaloxylos et al, 2012;Kruize et al, 2013); (ii) a configuration approach to link ICT Components to each other in a meaningful and coherent way (Kaloxylos et al, 2012;Verdouw et al, 2014); (iii) interoperability of different ICT Components (Kaloxylos et al, 2012;Kruize et al, 2013);(iv) an open software enterprise that smoothly facilitates the previous points (Jansen et al, 2012).…”

“…web-service technology using XML or Json as a syntax). Furthermore, semantic standards are available although in agriculture semantic standards or its implementation are often missing, making data exchange between ICT Components cumbersome (Kruize et al, 2013). The result is that farmers are not able to exchange data between different ICT Components (e.g.…”

“…data exchange between FMIS and sensors) and are affected by a vendor lock-in hindering farmers changing ICT Components (e.g. to change their FMIS) (Kruize et al, 2013). In some cases, farmers would need advanced data handling skills to make data exchange between components work, which is a not desirable situation.…”

“…In some cases, farmers would need advanced data handling skills to make data exchange between components work, which is a not desirable situation. Hence, Application Components developed within a Farm Software Ecosystem should be able to share data in an automated manner (Kruize et al, 2013;Sørensen et al, 2010b …”

“…More specifically for interoperability, the systematic analysis of Kruize et al(2013) showed that ICT Components used within the same farm enterprise (i) have partly overlapping and partly unique services, functions and interfaces, (ii) are missing required application services, functions and interfaces, (iii) have separated data repositories and (iv) have inadequate and incomplete data exchange. In conclusion, most of the available ICT Components are lacking both technical and semantic interoperability, resulting in data sharing issues and noncoherent user interfaces (Kruize et al, 2013). Consequently, current ICT Components often hamper farm enterprise integration as they do not sufficiently support the monitoring, planning and control processes to enable smart farming.…”