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Interoperable Ecosystems

One to rule them all

The sucess of this blueprint is the absence of one overarching autority ruling all parties.
One the opposite, this blueprint emphasis on several autonomous authorities combining their efforts and details how to achieve interoperability.

Kroki

Each ecosystem is governed by an authority which has specific Objectives, ie aim or goal, something to achieve.

Each Objective is translated into Policies, ie principles/ideas on how something is done, plan of action for decision making.

Each Policy is enforced with Procedures and Rules, ie orders/methods of doing something, permissions, prohibitions or duties. 

flowchart LR
    objective("Objectives")
    policy("Policies")
    rules("Procedures & Rules")
    objective --> policy --> rules

Interoperability assessment

Given several ecosystems, there are different levels of interoperability. This document reuses the four layer of interoperability described in the European Interoperability Framework: Legal, Organisational, Semantic, Technical.

Asset model

flowchart LR

    eco1((Ecosystem))
    eco2((Ecosystem))

    eco1 <-- "Legal assessment<br>⬇️" ---> eco2
    eco1 <-- "Organisational assessment<br>⬇️" --> eco2
    eco1 <-- "Semantic assessment<br>⬇️" --> eco2
    eco1 <-- Technical assessment --> eco2

This document targets the Organisational and Semantic layers by providing an ontology1 and a workflow to define second order2 logic rules.

Those rules can be used to translate the European values of transparency, openness, self-determination, privacy and interoperability into machine actionable information.

Objectives before technology

It's a sine qua non condition for the ecosystems to have at least partial common objectives to be interoperable.

Less middleware platforms and toolboxes but more silos

The previously assessment tasks must be performed in the given order to avoid surprises later in the assessment such as compatibles software but contradicting business goals.
Different architecture models such as centralized, distributed, federated or decentralised can be made interoperable by developing additional gateways or proxies. However the best technology in the world will never enable cross-ecosystem interoperability if there is no common objective or legal incompabilities.

  1. ontology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology_(information_science) ↩

  2. \(2^{nd}\) order logic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-order_logic ↩