Supporting interoperability in complex adaptive enterprise systems: A domain specific language approach

From a Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) theory perspective a new approach for supporting Enterprise Interoperability (El) is described. Particular needs informed by the theory are presented and a software environment supporting these requirements is proposed. The infrastructure aims at serving as a tool for solving problems in the EI domain, and includes a Domain Specific Language (DSL) supporting engineering interoperability solutions. The Ontology of Enterprise Interoperability (OoEI) provides the underlying conceptualisation of the Enterprise Interoperability (El) domain and is used as basis. The DSL enhances the ontology with CAS related concepts. The CAS perspective provides a particular focus on dynamic aspects, which requires a new approach currently only addressed to a limited extend. The research interoperability infrastructure provides components to address the decentralised nature of a CAS by providing software agents and agent interaction protocols that facilitate the identification of interoperability problems and agent negotiations to find solutions. It is realised using the functional programming language Scala. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.