IIoT Developers/Engineer

Achieving Interoperability is HARD! Here’s a Strategy that Works.

Lacey Trebaol

Written by Lacey Trebaol

March 16, 2016

Any system engineer, architect, and integrator can attest to this: achieving interoperability is hard, and integrations are usually not straightforward.

We can chalk this up to a variety of reasons, but here are my personal favorites:

  • Lack of documentation. And when there is documentation, it often contains errors. ICDs that are woefully incomplete? Check. Visio diagrams that were never updated to reflect the final state of the system? Check. References to system diagrams and other documents that are not available to you? Check. Check. Check.

  • "The system cannot be changed!" How often have you heard that? Having to treat each subsystem as a black box isn't an impossible task, but it can surely complicate things.

  • "I'm afraid it's secret." Everything about one or more of the systems is labeled "Proprietary" by the company that designed it. They won't share any details because it's all "classified" or "confidential." They may even say, "Sure, you might have the proper clearance, but it's only available on a need-to-know basis. I'll put in a request. It could take a while." Yeah, right.

These are all things that are outside of your control; all you can do is come into the project prepared with a toolbox of ways to approach these challenges. When I am in one of these situations, I have a strategy that works: focus on the data architecture.

What does that mean? I'll tell you! Watch this eLearning video, Data Modeling for Interoperability. You'll learn about requirements, what a system-of-systems is and how it's different than other systems, and how to leverage data modeling so you can be strategic – and successful! – in architecting and building your systems.

Most Recent Blog Posts

The Software-Defined Future

Leadership Technology Developers/Engineer 2023

Connext 7.1: Making Systems More Observable, Secure and Easy to Validate

News & Events Technology Developers/Engineer 2023

RTI Connext TSS 3.1: Why Avionics Systems Must Adapt for the Future Battlespace

News & Events Technology Developers/Engineer FACE Military Avionics 2023

Getting Started with Connext

Connext® is the world's leading implementation of the Data Distribution Service (DDS) standard for Real-Time Systems. Try a fully-functional version of Connext for 30 days.


Free Trial