Interoperability and distribution of process-sensitive systems

The paper explores the concepts and mechanisms that enable semantic interoperability of distributed, heterogeneous and autonomous process-sensitive systems (PSSs). A PSS is an autonomous software system that supports the explicit modeling and execution of a process (e.g., a business or a software process). A set of PSSs interoperate to implement a complex service that requires that they execute a common process. The management of the common process defines a spectrum of interoperability, ranging from simple communication to tight integration. The paper develops a general interoperability architecture and several variations to handle selected points on the spectrum. The paper also describes the authors´ past experiences in making distributed PSSs interoperate and the current interoperability architecture they have developed