Architecture of Interoperable Information Systems

The Architecture of Interoperable Information Systems (AIOS) is a reference architecture for the development of interoperable IT systems. If enterprises or public administrations want to engage in automated business processes with other organizations, their IT systems must be able to work together, i.e. they need to be interoperable. The AIOS represents a blue print for these organizations to systematically adjust and extend their internal information systems in order to make them interoperable with collaboration partners. The AIOS was described in a doctoral thesis and is based on the results of various research projects on interoperability It is independent from specific products or vendors, but describes generically the different layers, views, relationships and technical means needed to efficiently establish interoperable information systems. To this aim it combines well concepts from Service-oriented Architecture, Collaborative Business and Business Process Modelling. It can be seen as complementary to ARIS, a wide-spread architecture for internal information systems and business processes.

Definition

The automation of cross-organizational business processes is one of the most important trends of the information age. Instead of a tight integration collaborating organizations rather strive for a loose coupling of their information systems: information systems should be able to work together but retain as much independency as possible. This characteristic is also called interoperability. In the context of collaborating organizations, the term Business Interoperability was proposed. In comparison to technical interoperability notions, this term refers to the capability of autonomous organizations to execute a collaborative business process among them.

information system are systems that process information, i.e. they capture, transport, transform, store and offer information. Following the conception prevailing in information systems research, an information system comprises not only the hardware and software of an enterprise, but also the related human actors, business functions and processes as well as organization structures. This broad understanding is also embodied by the Zachman Framework.

Architecture is defined as the “fundamental organization of a system, embodied in its components, their relationships to each other and the environment, and the principles governing its design and evolution”. Sinz defines an information system architecture as the building plan of an information system in the sense of a specification and documentation of its components and their relationships covering all relevant viewpoints as well as the constructions rules for the creation of the building plan.

Accordingly, an Architecture of Interoperable Information Systems can be defined as the building plan of a cross-organizational information system, which enables organizations to execute a collaborative business process among them.

Background and Application

Following the work on interoperable information systems conducted in European Research Projects (e.g. ), in 2010 the Architecure of Interoperable Information Systems (AIOS) was published as a reference for the construction of loosely coupled, interoperating information systems and for the systematic, model-based enactment of collaborative business processes. The AIOS originally aims at large organizations who want to interoperate with each other. To this aim it describes how internal information system elements can be systematically connected with the information systems of collaboration partners.

Though the AIOS comprises all models needed for the enactment of collaborative business it focuses on design time aspects, e.g. the systematic development and configuration of interoperable information systems. The deployment of these models and the infrastructure to execute them are not described by AIOS. However, one run time component of the AIOS is a repository, in which each organization publishes the content of its Business Interoperability Interface (BII) to collaboration partners. Since it comprises external views on information system elements, it can support (runtime) publishing and discovery functionalities as needed in Service-oriented Architecture: In the BII, the externally relevant processes, services, organization structures etc. are described on various levels of technical granularity, enabling other organizations to search also for business-level concepts and not only for technical artifacts. Here, different from the traditional SOA approach, instead of one central service directory, various partner-specific repositories are implemented.

AIOS Dimensions

Architecture of Interoperable Information Systems

The architecure builds on three orthogonal axes: Enterprise Dimensions, Levels of technical Granularity and Colloborative Views. The latter provides a public view on private information system elements. Thus, the architecture provides a comprehensive Business Interoperability Interface, which describes the information system boundaries of one organization to its collaboration Partners and connects internal and external information systems.

Enterprise dimensions

To describe business processes comprehensively this axis provides distinct views on processes, functions, data, and organizational elements. In the organization dimension, roles, units and other organization elements relevant for the collaboration are described and related to internal elements. This ensures for example, that the collaboration partners have a common understanding of the interacting roles. In the data dimension, document types used in the collaboration are defined and related to internally used document types. In the function dimension, business functions and services offered in the collaboration are described. In the process dimension, the processes that each organization offers are described as well as how these public processes are related to adjacent processes of partner organizations.

Collaborative views

Similar to private, public and global views as known from business process and workflow modeling, in the AIOS, corresponding private, public and global views on information system elements are provided. The public view acts as an interface to the internal, private system elements; it protects internal systems and enables interoperability without the need for a significant change to the internal systems. The global view can be used to correlate and connect the public views of different systems.

Levels of technical granularity

The description of system elements on different levels of technical granularity supports a systematic development of collaborative information systems, starting with the business requirements definition and going all the way down to the code level. Apart from the construction aspect, a multi-dimensional interoperability description is also provided; describing the interacting systems on different levels of technical granularity enables the synchronization of the collaborating systems on each level. Similar to for example ARIS and OMG's MDA three levels are used:

1. Business Level: Here the processes to be automated are described from a technique independent level. In MDA this level is referred to as CIM level.
2. Technical Level: Here the IT concept is described. Therefore, the models from the first level are technically enriched, for example, instead of business functions now components are described, but still on a coarse-grained, conceptual level. Since the models on the second level represent the basis for an automated generation of executable code, they might have to be further adapted to fit implementation level constraints.
3. Execution Level: Here the models are machine interpretable and can used during runtime in the execution of processes.

References

Category:Operations research Category:Business Category:Collaborative software Category:Software