The Opportunity for Formal Models of Integration

Major industrial and governmental efforts in information sharing and integration require building or migrating applications using heterogeneous component systems. This style of software development enjoys the benefits of reusability, adaptability, and evolvability. However, as with most component integration attempts, interoperability problems arise. Although there are several strategies that currently exist for the integration of systems, many suffer from informality and are tightly coupled to particular domains and products. More importantly, interoperability problem detection and integration solution design show promise as areas where formal methods can be applied. In this paper, we discuss why the opportunity to use formal models of integration should not be overlooked. We present several criteria for formal modeling to be useful and usable for information and process integration. We illustrate our approach to integration modeling and discuss the expansion efforts needed to satisfy the criteria discussed.