Interoperability in Complex Distributed Systems

Abstract

Abstract. Distributed systems are becoming more complex in terms of both the level of heterogeneity encountered coupled with a high level of dynamism of such systems. Taken together, this makes it very difficult to achieve the crucial property of interoperability that is enabling two arbitrary systems to work together relying only on their declared service specification. This chapter examines this issue of interoperability in considerable detail, looking initially at the problem space, and in particular the key barriers to interoperability, and then moving on to the solution space, focusing on research in the middleware and semantic interoperability communities. We argue that existing approaches are simply unable to meet the demands of the complex distributed systems of today and that the lack of integration between the work on middleware and semantic interoperability is a clear impediment to progress in this area. We outline a roadmap towards meeting the challenges of interoperability including the need for integration across these two communities, resulting in middleware solutions that are intrinsically based on semantic meaning. We also advocate a dynamic approach to interoperability based on the concept of emergent middleware.

Toward a Cooperative Approach for Continuous Innovation of Mobility Information Services

“…While ESBs provide flexible instruments to achieve interoperability with different levels of coupling among components and thus represent the state-of-the-art in SOA implementations, still their evolution is required in order to effectively support interoperation across complex systems [36]. As discussed by Thomas et al [36], interoperation challenges arise from the need of handling the extreme level heterogeneity as well as the increasing level of dynamism encountered in the systems called to interoperate.…”

“…As discussed by Thomas et al [36], interoperation challenges arise from the need of handling the extreme level heterogeneity as well as the increasing level of dynamism encountered in the systems called to interoperate.…”

The CONNECT Architecture

“…Indeed, the world wide budget for Interoperability is estimated to be in excess of $1 Trillion [7]). In the chapter 'Interoperability in Complex Distributed Systems' of this book that surveys the interopability problems and state of the art solutions [5], the important barriers to fully achieving interoperability are identified as:…”

“…While suitable for systems that know they will need to interoperate with heterogeneous protocol, this approach cannot this cannot solve the problem of two legacy platforms required to interoperate with one another; INDISS [8] and uMiddle [24] are examples of transparent interoperability solutions that dynamically translate through an intermediary language to achieve this requirement. However, in all of these cases, only a subset of the above four barriers are attempted to be resolved; see [5] for a detailed analysis of the state of the art which illustrates this observation.…”

MPIGate: A Solution to Use Heterogeneous Networks for Assisted Living Applications

“…There exist of course also a lot of other approaches such as the web-based ones to realize interoperability like UPnP, or even SIP-based solutions [11]. For further discussions, readers can refer to [12].…”