Interoperability is the ability of two or more systems to work with each
other. In the loosely coupled environment of a service-oriented architecture
(SOA), separate resources don’t have to know how each of them work, but
they do need to interoperate with each other by having enough common ground
to exchange messages without error or misunderstanding.
On the other hand, semantics is the intended meaning. In computing, semantics
is the assumed or explicit set of understandings used in a system to give
data meaning. Semantic interoperability is the foundation of a SOA
implementation. It ensures that service consumers and providers exchange data
consistently and flexibly.
Interoperability wasn’t a concern years ago when manufacturing started
developing IT systems. Manufacturing has invested heavily in creating large,
complex, heterogeneous IT systems to supp... (more)