Data interoperability

Interoperability refers to the ability of systems, processes or people to exchange information smoothly in a way that preserves the meaning and usability of the information.

We provide our customers with tools to describe data in a system-independent and semantically interoperable, i.e. machine-understandable, format – not just machine-readable.

Interoperability is built on uniform descriptions of information, such as information models, code sets and vocabularies. Information interoperability enables the efficient and lossless exchange of information between organizations, their information systems and experts.

In this era artificial intelligence, the importance of information interoperability is ever increasing. In order for artificial intelligence-based solutions to be able to retrieve and analyze information correctly based on its meaning and description, the data’s foundation must be semantically well modeled and structured.

Information interoperability can be categorized into several different levels, such as:

  • Technical interoperability
  • Semantic interoperability
  • Organizational interoperability
  • Legal interoperability

In particular, technical and semantic interoperability in their various forms have been at the heart of our expertise for years. This includes services such as conceptual modeling, terminological work, logical data modeling and building ontologies, graph database-based software development, implementation of various standards, and so on.

The methods we use are commonly based on open standards (RDF, OWL) and are in line with, among others, The European Interoperability Framework (EIF), international standards in the building and construction sector (e.g. bSDD) and other standards in the built environment (e.g. InfraBIM, LandXML, IFC).

As an example of our work, we have been heavily involved in building the Interoperability Platform of the Digital and Population Services Agency, which is one of the most pivotal technical solutions in Finland for enabling interoperability between different public organizations.