This article was originally published on 01/02/2020 and was updated on 12/27/2024
When we design mission-critical systems, we know there are critical relationships between our components and their integration. We know this so profoundly that we build processes that demand collaboration and evidence of collaboration to the degree they are now standards for our processes. To the degree that people must collaborate, our tools must create interoperability to encourage collaboration and innovation. Intuitively we feel we know what interoperability means, but critically we must take that next step to define what are the critical elements.
And we're convinced that this next step is taking the shape of the Open Services Lifecycle Collaboration standard (OSLC). Why, may you ask? Because OSLC provides a secured and standardized framework enabling harmonious and seamless integration as well as data exchange across different software development environments and lifecycle management tools. OSLC intends to be the catalyst for bridging the gaps between environments and tools long accustomed to silos So, in this article, we're going to delve a little deeper into the concepts of interoperability, with a particular focus on OSLC, to demonstrate how essential OSLC is for engineers to achieve tool interoperability. And yes, systems and software engineers need OSLC for tool interoperability, now more than ever!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. What is Interoperability in Systems and Software Engineering?
2. What about OSLC?
3. Why do Engineers need Interoperability?
4. OSLC and Linked Data
5. How can your engineers benefit from OSLC?
6. How SodiusWillert helps you achieve tool interoperability with OSLC
What is interoperability in systems and software engineering?
Interoperability encompasses various range of standards, mechanisms, platforms, and software technologies allowing disconnected and separate systems and tools to communicate, and data to be shared, exchanged, or integrated.
They are critical to the successful continuation of the engineering lifecycle as they create bridges between disparate solutions and systems to interact in multiple ways, including in real-time in highly complex environments.
Interoperability is achievable and is based on assets, temporal asset versions, and asset relationships:
- Accessibility to all assets when we need them, in their native representations
- Ability to navigate to the current or selected version of an asset in any repository
- Ability to create relationships between assets independent of repository
What about OSLC?
The Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration is an industry standard for integrating tools. Originating out of the development of the IBM Jazz tools, it was built on the powerful concepts of linked data and the web. Rather quickly it was identified to be valuable to the larger community and not held by a single company. The community migrated ownership to OASIS for continued growth and enhancement. Here is where it grows with both the support of tool vendors and tool users.
At its core, OSLC defines how repositories can securely communicate, the data they expose, and the links allowable between the domains. Most visible to the users are the services to provide seamless access and navigation between tools with links direct to artifacts and rich previews prior to traversing links.
Collectively, OSLC provides the framework to make integration to a repository and service consistent for both tools and users.
The vision of OSLC is an ability to achieve interoperability in your enterprise making both engineers and IT Administrators successful.
Why do engineers need interoperability?
ℹ️ We need to be careful to avoid burdening interoperability with the needs of exchangeability. Exchangeability introduces the need for semantic preservation, synchronization across repositories, and access governance, which is not the core burden of interoperability.
Interoperability to unburden the organization
When interoperability is well pursued, exchangeability is no longer a burden on the organization. Teams can access and navigate to assets natively in the tools where they are authored, and no exchange is necessary.
The result is that your IT teams can successfully manage your enterprise repositories, and your engineering teams can continue their flourishing work with greater ease and comfort. However, we can use exchangeability as a warning when interoperability has failed our organization or our organizational boundaries.
Interoperability to achieve collaboration within the engineering organization
There was a time when engineers could settle for working on their own and operate with just a single tool or toolchain. Well, those days are long gone. What we observe more than ever today is that Engineering is a holistic practice. Today, many more disciplines and skills are usually involved in the engineering process, each with its very own needs and perspectives on the system under development and its growing amount of point decisions.
Isolation of people or data is no longer a possibility, and collaboration is essential.
The ideas of data and people collaborating are codified in our standards and best practices. Whether we are working with ASPICE, ISO 26262, IEC 61508, or DoD 178b, our objective remains consistent with the assets of traceability showing the traceability of design.
Fundamentally this means we must collaborate and enable the sharing of knowledge. Collaboration is not just good engineering practice, it’s a mandatory requirement, and our tools must make this easier and more visible.
OSLC and Linked Data
Is Linking Data better than Synchronizing Data?
In the not-so-distant past, interoperability was defined as the ability to exchange data. engineering tools were file-based, and processes often "waterfall" in style, so the collaboration flow was built on exchange. This meant the passing of files triggered the next flow and action.
To our great credit, both our tools and processes have changed. Our tools are now shared repositories, and processes are now more agile and dynamic. This means the idea of interoperability can no longer be founded on the ability to exchange information, but rather present dynamic information as it is available.
So, yes, linking data is much more preferable than data synchronization. We've included a link to an article that goes into more detail on the subject.
The need to reduce dependency and increase collaboration
Our goals remain consistent with having correct and timely information to make Engineering decisions. Our processes and tools have naturally changed the way we access information from a push of exchangeability to a pull of interoperability. That's why we remain convinced that linked assets will continue to be the focus of future interoperability.
It is natural in engineering that our links between assets are strong and represent our dependency and need to collaborate. As the assets on either end of the links evolve it provides a natural forum to collaborate, inspect, and validate the consistency of the engineering design.
Enabling the pull on this data flow by the link affords the natural practices and tools to enable access to design.
The need to avoid an uncontrolled amount of copies
From an infrastructure perspective, the value of linking, over synchronizing, is immense. The linked data’s approach does not allow copy retention, can always require authentication before views, and can be updated when the data owner determines a change is needed— all without having to track down and refresh in multiple systems through manual or automated means.
And we know all of this is true since linking has been a core practice of our tools for years. What is now unique is the linking across tools, repositories, and configurations. It is the natural next step as we evolve out of the practice of synchronizations and exchanges.
How can your engineers benefit from OSLC?
OSLC creates the opportunity to address the demands of engineers for interoperability. It provides the ability to connect the engineering tools of choice in the enterprise avoiding the disruption of tool migration.
From the IT perspective, the ability of OSLC to avoid data replication and enforce authenticated access to assets enhances their ability to maintain the needs and the standard of the organization. It can meet the needs of the users and your IT organization at once.
OSLC for Tool Interoperability
OSLC (Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration) can be vital for your organization's ability to address these challenges. It enables data to remain in their systems of record while allowing the linking across domains to bridge silos in scalable enterprises, all while enforcing authenticated access to data.
It realizes the best of intentions of integrating the engineering repositories that we use every day.
Real-time visualization and sharing of engineering data through connected tools
One of the fundamental aspects of linked data is the guarantee that the data displayed in your expert tool environment is the most recent and up-to-date version. When you click or hover over an OSLC link, the current data from the target repository is retrieved and displayed in your tool, which means it's the current value of that information.
This promotes a unified understanding of project and systems information by all stakeholders, without the risk of ending up with obsolete versions. As a result, the decision-making processes are all the more effective. Yet another demonstration of the power of OSLC.
How SodiusWillert helps you achieve tool interoperability with OSLC
SodiusWillert develops tools and solutions that enhance the integration, management, and utilization of linked data within complex systems engineering environments following the OSLC standard. We take engineering data interoperability very seriously.
Our OSLC Connect product range answers the needs of organizations when it comes to enabling the creation of interoperability and traceability across different tools and makes engineering data available to systems and software development teams to accelerate development projects.
️️➡️ Explore OSLC Connect for Jira
️️➡️ Explore OSLC Connect for Confluence
➡️ Explore OSLC Connect for PTC Windchill
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