Interoperability

Interoperability is the degree to which two or more systems, products, or components can exchange information and go on to make use of the information that has been exchanged.

It is not enough for one system to send data another can receive. Interoperability also requires that the receiving system understands the data well enough to act on it.

ISO/IEC 25010 classifies interoperability as a sub-characteristic of compatibility, the broader quality attribute that also covers co-existence, or a system’s ability to share an environment with others without interfering with them. Interoperability, by contrast, is about deliberate information exchange between systems, rather than passive resource sharing.

Open standards and well-specified interfaces are the usual route to interoperability, since they let independently built systems agree on a contract without either side depending on the other’s internals. This is part of why formats such as JSON and protocols such as HTTP are so widely adopted. They give unrelated systems a common open language to exchange information in.