Interworking in data processing

An amendment with the French law on the royalties and right close in the company to the information (DADVSI) which was not retained by the National Assembly proposed the following definitions:

One understands by compatibility the capacity of two systems to be communicated without ambiguity.
One understands by interworking the capacity to make compatible two non-linear systems. Interworking requires that the necessary informations with its implementation are available in the form of open standards.

Introduction

Stakes

The Interopérabilité is an absolutely crucial concept for the world network telephone and Internet. Essentially, of the various and varied materials are implemented in these heterogeneous networks at the sides of a panoply even vaster of Computer materials and Logiciel S.

It is also crucial for the whole of the economy, because in almost all the spheres of activity in the Industrie, in the services, and in the Agriculture, one employs computing systems, which today communicate from one company to another by the intermédiare of data-processing networks (Internet, Extranet, emails). One could note the interdependence of the world Computing systems at the time of the data-processing Passage to the year 2000 (Y2K).

Interworking is a need in the field of the E-business. Indeed, the applicant of services and the supplier of services must be able interopérer by employing structures and Types common data.

Need for the standards

Interworking requires that the Communication S obey Norme S, clearly established and univocal (see industrial Normes and standards). These Document S techniques often defines requirements, sometimes accompanied by more or less optional recommendations. If the Norme is correctly written, two systems which satisfy the requirements must dialog together without particular concern. They can thus freely evolve/move without Risque to break this possibility of communication, as long as they respect the Norme defining their Interface S.

For example, the Norme can define elements as:

formats of the Donnée S exchanged in the context considered, which describe sequences of information or orders that a system must send, how its correspondents must answer it (Communication protocol).
tensions and currents to be used;
types of cables to be used.

In the world of data processing in particular, one should not make confusion between a Norme and a Standard, this indicating last what is usually produced by a producer and depends only on him. This confusion comes from English, who does not have that only one word to indicate the two concepts - standard means also Norme.

The Standard, and/or the Recommendation which accompanies it, is established by an independent organism which limits the unilateral modifications. It is thus understood that it is inappropriate to define a Interopérabilité starting from a nonopen standard.

Two approaches of interworking

Standards open and standard Community

Certain groups - often of the consortia or the association S - have a process of drafting of the Norme S which is collaboratif: under certain conditions, individuals or companies can adhere and take part in work groups which prepare the technical documentation which will constitute the standard.

This Norme is then published, sometimes initially with the state of draft or draft , whose tests of Mise in work will make it possible to find the faults of them and to correct the defects of them, then of candidate to the publication and finally of official recommendation or information memorandum.

This publication is open, each and everyone with the possibility of studying these documents and of trying to develop a system in conformity with these Standards. Moreover, the fact that the drafting is relatively open to the community avoids seeing standards published which satisfy only one minority which would hold a capacity of Décision on their contents.

Examples of organizations functioning according to an open process: IETF, W3C, ISOC, OASIS, Unicode. These organizations, for the majority of the private consortia joined together in groupings of interest to nonlucrative goal, accept adhesions of whoever (without reserving the seats), and largely call upon contributions of the public. Their force (in spite of the fact that they cannot emit not standard in obligatory matter) is due largely to the number of their participating members, and can thus produce standards often approved then by the national and international organizations of standardization, with which they exchange seats of connection or rapporteurs. Their most qualified members also often have by the standardizing States to become the representatives of their interests about it, in their fields of expertise.
Examples of open standards: XML, XHTML, png, Ogg Vorbis… Some of these standards acquired the statute of international standards while remaining open.

Closed formats and owners

On the other hand, the major brake with an optimal interworking is the use in material and Logiciel S of format S whose only their originators would have the keys. This closing is often voluntary because it aims, in the case of a format of file owner, to make sure that a user will not use another Logiciel to read his Donnée S.

Unless having obtained the specifications of the format from the originator, it is necessary to have recourse to the Retro-engineering, to reconstitute the specifications and to be able of them to develop compatible tools. Loi S are however being studied to frame this kind of practice, like DMCA with the the United States, or Directive on the copyright (or EUCD) in the European Union. Some trusts there see a Intérêt and make pressure so that they are adopted.

Example: The instant messagings owners like ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger or MSN Messenger whose protocols compatible and are not maintained non-interopérables.

Between the two: standards with restricted distribution

Between these two worlds, there exists also a great number of organizations more or less open in the selection of their members, often directed towards the companies and having contributions or import duties raised, from which the publications are not freely accessible, but paying. It is the case of the majority of the organizations of State, in particular. One can quote the international agencies or intergovernmental ISO, UIT, or the national committees (ANSI, AFNOR, etc) members of the ISO. However, the majority of these standards are accessible via a single payment to obtain a copy from it, without its use leading inevitably to the payment of a royalty for their use; the problem remains however that the specifications are not freely exchangeable, each user having to discharge price of a copy of the standard.

Moreover, same government organizations return enough often free of access standards more essential, or when they judge that a greater diffusion is necessary to their interworking, in order to support the contributions and implementations requiring a very broad Community effort because of the complexity of their implementation. Lastly, of many standards (not always very old) that the governments do not want to maintain any more themselves alone are published and become accessible to all, or within the framework of collaboration agreements between public standardizing organizations and private consortia, in order to avoid supporting a restricted number suppliers.

Sometimes, it is an small group of people, even only one, which decides on a Standard (to reach the statute of Norme, this standard must be approved by at least a national committee of standardization, which can impose conditions of freedom of use). This group or this company, which emits the standard in industrial matter, can be more or less with the listening of the suggestions, of course, of its users. Current examples are RAR (algorithm of compression), pdf (format of document for the impression), Java (Computer programming language), Flash (format of animation for the Web), etc

In certain countries, like the the United States and the Japan, the use of Norme S can be subjected to a royalty if the standard contains patentable elements: GIF (format of image, however the patents which covered this format have all expired and this format is from now on free) and of many codecs of the series MPEG (whose MP3 for the coding of the sound, or MPEG4 and H.323 for the video) is examples (the decoding and the use of the contents in these formats are often free, but the production of contents in these formats is subjected to license). However, the international organizations of standardization now impose limitations on the amounts which the patentees can perceive and prohibit to them any discrimination (prohibition of the exclusive patents) towards the applicants of license for the use of the rights reserved by the patents required, if they wish to see their standards accepted or tolerated in a national standard or international, as well as conditions of interworking with alternative solutions to these reserved technologies.

Principle of interworking in data processing

Complexity of interworking in data processing

The Informatique poses the problem of the Interopérabilité in new terms. It highlights certain contradictions between the commercial Intérêt S of companies providing produced S and services, and the new Exigences of the Consommateur S these products and services. Because of the computerized tools, Expertise acquired by user groups, Communication facilitated, interworking becomes more concrete problems with the growing eyes of a number people, who include/understand some better holding them and bordering - in particular the Enjeu X of the choice and the protection of the Donnée S.

This movement is seen like a democratic projection by the partisans of an “opened” interworking, but this opinion is not divided by all. Many companies defend contrary a more traditional model where the Interopérabilité remains the fruit of private initiative and sudden a strict control. From the Enjeu X which are bound to him today, in the fields of the Travail or in the private sphere for example, data-processing interworking certainly will play a part of catalyst of the future changes, whatever they are.

Data conveyed in the interfaces

In practice, interworking touches all the fields of the Informatique. They are the rules of coherence of the conveyed Donnée S which control interworking. The Bench-mark datum employed by several applications are generally those which control interworking.

In contexts where the Donnée S coexist structured (those of the Databases) and the Donnée S not structured (the documents, texts, images), one considers generally today that the common data are consisted “ Métadonnée S ”. In the beginning, in fact key words were introduced into the Langages of beaconing such as SGML, HTML.

The language XML is regarded today as the language which gives access the whole of the Computer's resources by the Web, by using these Métadonnée S, within the framework RDF defined by W3C in 1999. In practice, interworking rests on the description of Schémas XML, which makes it possible to check that documents XML conform to the constraints of a diagram. The flexibility of the Schémas XML comes from what it is possible to define of the Espaces of names and of the Types of data to characterize the elements of exchanged data.

As much the Interopérabilité is necessary in economic Intelligence for the Gouvernement S and the Entreprises in network, as much the use without precaution of the Métadonnée S in the data-processing components can often comprise Risque S of losses of information for the communities which employ them, without having Conscience of their strategic importance. Behavior of Registers of metadata in accordance with the normative rules (ISO/CEI 11179) limit risks related to the Metadatum S.

See: Risks and census of the uses of the metadata

Several governments in the world employ reference frames of Métadonnée S based on the Dublin Core, aiming at implementing interworking within definite frameworks.

Application program interfaces

The Application program interfaces (API) are at the base of the data-processing Interopérabilité. For example, the specification J2EE for the Computer programming language Java comprises many types of API, which convey Métadonnée S. These API can apply to various types of Computer's resources (databases) or applications (Business package integrated).

Practical aspects of interworking

Interworking between networks and databases

As regards data-processing interworking between the networks and the databases, one manages to bring closer to the events on temporal criteria.

The X733 standard standardizes these questions from the point of view of the télécoms. But one of the most significant problems is to ensure compatibility, from the point of view of the semantics of the data, with a métaframework and languages of description.

Office automation interworking in

See also: open Architecture of document, OpenDocument

For a long time, each software publisher manufactured his Logiciel, and of the filters to make migrate the operators of their continuation Bureautique to the news. The exchange of document was not guaranteed.

Recently, under the impulse of OpenOffice.org (supported by Sun Microsystems), two systems of office automation exchange of file were created, of which one of them is the OpenDocument. The other being that of Microsoft.

However, in 2006, France, in the private sector good number of documents continue to circulate with the format .doc of Microsoft Word, this use of the Word format poses a problem of interworking, insofar as:

is the recipient must buy the good version of Microsoft Word (and possibly a version of Windows) for reading such documents;
is, by using OpenOffice.org, it exists a Risque that certain parts of the document, using nonknown functionalities of OpenOffice do not pass correctly not or are deformed.

The just format OpenDocument of the Metadatum S according to the framework of description envisaged by RDF.

See: OpenDocument Metadata

Interworking into multi-media

In the field of the Multi-media , the majority of the formats are well-known, so much so that they are used by Free software, however of new formats such as the wmv of Microsoft, and a more general way DRM pose problems of Interopérabilité.

W3C recommends the use of the language SMIL 2.0 (Synchronized Multimedia Language Integration), which rests on XML and the use of Métadonnée S. the statute of this recommendation is “stable specification”.

See: The W3C recommends SMIL 2.0

Multilingual interworking

Interworking of the email

Interworking of the Web

The Architecture Web was conceived from the beginning to be based on the use of Langages of beaconing (HTML) and of Métadonnée S. This tendency was confirmed with the languages XHTML and XML. RDF (Resource description framework), defined by W3C in 1999, provides a framework of description of the resources which founds interworking between all the Ressources Web, like with the others Computer's resources.

Different navigator S and versions from navigators can be used to consult the Web.

The waiters Web must thus be interopérables with various software customers. For this reason, they use a language known, HTML, combined with others stantards, such as HTTP, SVG or JPEG.

Many a RFC direct this Interopérabilité. W3C is an organization working in this field.

Software Example of S customers: Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer
Example of server softwares: Apache

The reference frame of Métadonnée S Dublin Core provides a standard of Interopérabilité Computer's resources thanks to the use of same the elements of metadata by several organizations in network. More than eight Gouvernement S in the world adopted it for the behavior of Registres of metadata.

The language Java also has functions of interworking, around:

of the standard JMI (Java Metadata Interfaces),
interfaces OLAP,
of the Services Web.

Interworking of the systems of file S

The system FAT (developed initially by IBM) is largely known and widespread, this format (itself derived from the old filing system CPM to which he added trivialement the support of the repertories the made-to-order of Unix by using a normal file to store them) was in particular used on the Disquette S. One can thus consider that system FAT is easily interopérable even if he declines himself in several alternatives according to the total size of storage of the filesystem.

However, of the extensions to initial system FAT were developed and used by Microsoft and were subjected to patents (of which VFAT which extends commonplace extension FAT32 to make him support coding Unicode, in the repertories, and the long attribute file names of additional files, while at the same time the extension itself is completely documented and freely accessible).

Conversely, the format NTFS (he also of Microsoft) is badly known. A Linux system can thus modify files there only in a way very limited without being likely to corrupt it. It is the same for the extensions to the system of starting, in particular certain extensions to the tables of partitions.

Frameworks of interworking

Definition

A framework of interworking is defined by the whole of the Politique S, the standards, the rules and the recommendations taken by a network of actors in order to reach more the possible high level of interworking. It also describes the operating rules which govern the analysis, the choice, the adoption and the update of each one of these elements.

National frameworks of interworking

Here some national frameworks of interworking:

Belgium: the BELGIF (Belgian Government Interoperability Framework)
France: the general Reference frame of interworking (RGI) promoted by DGME (the ministry for defense has also an organization in this field)
Germany: Standards und Architekturen für eGovernment-Anwendungen (SAGA)
Denmark: Danish e-Government Interoperability Framework
Netherlands: CANOSS (Nederlandse Catalogus van Open Standaarden)
the United Kingdom: the E-GIF (e-Government Interoperability Framework)

World framework

The World summit on the Company of the Information (WSIS) of Geneva in 2003 also defined clear objectives in the level of standardization TIC by asking for “the development and the use of standards opened, compatible, nondiscriminatory and centered on the request which take account of the needs for the users and the consumers”.

Tally European

The European commission published the 13/02/2006 its Communication on interworking. Program IDABC of the European commission works as for him in a European plan of interworking. The European vision is also described by a whole of general recommendations whose first version was published in November 2004.

In its recommendation n°2, the European commission gives the priority to the use of open standards. By open standard, she understands:

the standard was adopted and its maintenance will be ensured by a non-profit-making organization, and its later development will be done on the basis of open decisional procedure accessible to all the interested parts (consensus or majority decision, etc).
the standard was published and the document of specification of the standard is available free either or against a sum symbolic system. Everyone must be able to copy, distribute and use this document free or against a sum symbolic system.
the rights of Intellectual property, namely the possible patents, of the standard (or parts of the standard) are irrevocably placed at the disposal without requiring royalty.

A thorough analysis of the elements of architecture necessary to European interworking is described in “Architecture guidelines” project IDABC.

Standardization

Standards, recommendations and standards

On the Technologies information and communication, the Information system security and the Data security:

Standards in the information systems

Major organizations publishing of the standards

There exist various organizations whose role is to validate standards or recommendations that industries, in particular, will use as support to render their services and products interopérables, and a fortiori , compatible:

ISO: International organization of standardization (emits standards applicable to the international plan)
ITU: International union of telecommunications (the committee ITU-T only puts forth technical recommendations, which are then approved like international standards by the ISO, or like standards in the intergovernmental or national plan).
ANSI: American National Standards Institute: national committee of standardization to the the United States.
CEN: European Committee for Standardization: Intergovernmental Committee of standardization in the European Union.

CENELEC: European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization: sub-committee

AFNOR: French Association of standardization: national committee of standardization in France, emits standards NF in series Z for data processing.

For the Internet in particular, the committee following directly do not emit standards but establish industrial standards, but they work very largely in connection with the international and national committees of standardization:

IETF: Internet Engineering Task Force
ISOC: Internet Society
W3C: World Wide Web Consortium
OASIS: Organization for the Advancement off Structured Information Standards

See too

References

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