Approach to service uses in federated information systems

Within the framework of cooperative information systems, we suggest a federation process for information systems. Compared with traditional methods which are limited to database schemas, our method also deals with the services (programs) which gravitate around information systems. We present different forms of service interoperability within a federation: "service integration" and "service reuse". This article does not deal with technical aspects but presents the different forms of service interoperability with their respective objectives, advantages and disadvantages.