European initiatives to develop interoperability of enterprise applications—basic concepts, framework and roadmap

Abstract

This paper presents basic concepts, framework and roadmaps to develop interoperability of enterprise applications and software. The paper is a summary of the main work carried out in Europe to elaborate interoperability development roadmaps and to prepare forthcoming R&D projects under the Six Framework Programme (FP6). The originality of the approach is to tackle interoperability problem from multiple but integrated views. The state-of-the-art, user requirements and visions relating to develop interoperability are presented. Recommendations for future works are discussed and conclusions given at the end.

Introduction

In 2000s, the European Commission (E.C.) has set up an expert group to identify problematic/approach relating to the development of interoperability of enterprise software applications in Europe, and to make propositions to the Commission to launch projects in this domain.

Interoperability of enterprise applications and software is considered as a strategic issue by E.C. Compared with the situation in US or Japan, developing interoperability will bring more benefits to European industry in terms of knowledge sharing and collaboration, and thus accelerate European economy integration.

Three main research themes or domains that address interoperability issues were identified by the expert group, namely: (1) Enterprise modelling (EM) dealing with the representation of the inter-networked organisation to establish interoperability requirements; (2) Architecture & Platform (A&P) defining the implementation solution to achieve interoperability; (3) Ontologies (ONTO) addressing the semantics necessary to assure interoperability.

Based on the recommendation of the expert group, a thematic network Interoperability Development of Enterprise Applications and Software (IDEAS) was launched (July 2002–June 2003). The objective was to elaborate a roadmap to develop interoperability (IST, 2001). This roadmap would be used by the Commission to define orientation for future projects under the FP6 (Sixth framework programme) for the years to come.

Two main initiatives relating to interoperability development within FP6 are in preparation: ATHENA Integrated Project (IP) and INTEROP Network of Excellence (NoE). Advanced Technologies for Interoperability of Heterogeneous Enterprise Networks and their Applications (ATHENA) is actually a programme. It consists of a set of projects dealing with gaps-closing activities considered as priorities in IDEAS roadmaps and will lead to prototypes, technical specifications, guidelines and best practices that form a common European repository of knowledge (ATHENA, 2003). Interoperability Research for Networked Enterprises Applications and Software (INTEROP) aims at integrating expertise in relevant domains for sustainable structuration of European Research on Interoperability of Enterprise applications (INTEROP, 2003). More than 50 research entities (Universities, Institutes, …) and up to 150 researchers and 100 Doctorate students from 15 EU countries are joining INTEROP NoE.

One of the trends in the global market is the increasing collaboration among enterprises during the entire product life cycle. Constant changes in inter and intra organisational environment will persist in the future. Organisations have to flexibly react to changes in markets and trading partners. In addition, they have to cope with internal changes from both a technical (e.g. new software versions, new software and hardware technologies) and organisational point of view (e.g. merging, re-organisation).

Within this context, legacy enterprise applications often hinder cooperation endeavours. Software codes, once written and implemented, can hardly be re-engineered. The applications were in many cases not designed to interoperate with other applications. For example, although many systems and applications speak XML, their data models and schemas are often quite different. The definition of common concepts such as ‘order’ or ‘customer’ may vary greatly among applications. Another obstacle is the lack of standards in a number of cases, for instances for describing and orchestrating business process flows across multiple systems (IDEAS, 2003).

Software interoperability is a long lasting problem for enterprises. It emerged from proprietary development or extensions, unavailability or oversupply of standards, and heterogeneous hardware and software platforms. The situation became more critical through new business ecosystems like extended enterprises and networked organisations that require businesses to work together to achieve further benefits. To deal with interoperability problems, it is important to understand the socioeconomic influences that are imposed on enterprises as well as to understand the general set-up of organisations in today’s and tomorrow’s business networks and their influence on interoperability issues (ATHENA, 2003).

Indeed, interoperability is not only a problem of software and IT technologies. It implies support of communication and transactions between different organisations that must be based on shared business references. To be shared among organisations, these references must be agreed upon and respond to the co-operation needs of the organisation. To gain time and efficiency, and to avoid re-defining co-operation rules and software supporting it each time, these references must be based on business standards or norms. The business standards must be independent and weakly coupled with IT solutions and IT standards to avoid proprietary solutions and to support openness and evolutivity.

To define the scope of interoperability problematic, a simplified interoperability framework is used as shown in Fig. 1. This is a conceptual model of the interaction between two enterprises. In order to achieve meaningful interoperation between enterprises, interoperability must be achieved on all layers of an enterprise. This includes the business environment and business processes on the business layer, the organisational roles, skills and competencies of employees and knowledge assets on the knowledge layer, and applications, data and communication components on the ICT layer. In additions, semantic descriptions can be used to get the necessary mutual understanding between enterprises that want to collaborate.

First, a state-of-the-art (SoA) study on existing enterprise interoperability approaches in the three relevant domains (EM, A&P and ONTO) was performed. In parallel, visions and user requirements were identified on the basis of business scenarios for the next 5–10 years. Based on the statement of ‘what are required’ and ‘what exits to-day’, a gap analysis was carried out and the roadmaps elaborated to reduce the gaps. The roadmaps are a synthesis of a top down approach in the definition of the vision and a bottom up approach in the state-of-the-art and user requirements. An interoperability framework was built to guide the work.

This paper is aiming at various audiences, including end users, institutional deciders (e.g. the E.C.), consultants, managers and researchers. The main purpose is to define the area, clarifying concepts, giving taxonomy of the problems and identify the path for future developments.

The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 deals with basic concepts and definitions relating to interoperability development. Appropriate concepts and approaches proposed by relevant standards are adopted as references. Section 3 gives a state-of-the-art in the three relevant domains (EM, A&P and ONTO). Findings and conclusions are given focusing on the lack of SoA with respect to interoperability development. Section 4 presents the user requirements and visions that were collected by IDEAS project. The SoA (what we have) and user requirements/visions (what we want) allow to define the gaps and derive the roadmaps. Section 5 describes the interoperability framework that structures concerns and problem areas. Section 6 shows how the road mapping process was carried out and resulting roadmaps elaborated. In Section 7, recommendations/perspectives for future works are discussed. Section 8 concludes the paper.