Systems Interoperability Types: The Conclusion to Our Tertiary Study

Table of Links

Introduction

Related Work

Research Method

Results

Discussions

Conclusions & References

6 CONCLUSIONS

Implementing interoperability in SIS is very challenging not only in large technology-oriented systems with complicated interactions but also in small and medium-sized systems where a balance of the benefits and drawbacks of adopting existing interoperability models, frameworks, or solutions is required. Organizations, research communities, and industries demonstrate a continuous interest in better understanding the different interoperability types and the actual relationships among them and in proposing different solutions.

In this scenario, our tertiary study systematically retrieved 586 studies (494 during the first conduction and 92 during the update) and scrutinized 37 studies that satisfied our criteria and were published from 2012 to 2023. This work contributes with an updated and broad view of SIS interoperability, including 36 interoperability types, distilling their definitions and classifying them, and different ways to organize them that several models and frameworks have provided.

We observe these types that emerged over the years reflect how the field has evolved, showing the trends and serving as a basis for solutions. Considering such types, we analyzed several models, frameworks, and diverse domains concerned with interoperability. We identified important findings, open issues, urgent actions to be further performed, and potential research opportunities. Therefore, this work can be considered a step toward a body of knowledge on SIS interoperability.

For the future, a critical step is to change the mindset of practitioners and researchers that interoperability must be treated as a multidisciplinary field, which should also deal with interoperability outside the systems (e.g., legal, political, and cultural interoperability).

In this perspective, this work intends to call attention to the current scenario of the field, increase the awareness of SIS interoperability, and contribute with a body of knowledge that should be updated continuously to keep it aligned with the state of the art in the field, which is indeed dynamic.

Acknowledgments: This research was funded by Bahia Research Foundation - FAPESB (Grant: TIC0002/2015), São Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP (Grants: 2022/03276-6, 2015/24144-7), and National Council for Scientific and Technological Development - CNPq (Grant: 313245/2021-5).

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A. Structure of Interoperability Models and Frameworks

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