1 The Opportunity for Formal Models of Integration J. Payton R. Gamble S. Kimsen L. Davis Dept. of Mathematical and Computer Sciences University of Tulsa 600 S. College Avenue Tulsa, OK 74104 USA +1 918 631 2988 {payton, gamble, sonali, davisl}@euler.mcs.utulsa.edu ABSTRACT 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. Keywords: Component-based design, Integration, Interoperability, Formal methods 1 INTRODUCTION As software ages and new paradigms for computing come to the forefront, the complex reuse, sharing and integration of information in terms of data, processes, and independent subsystems is becoming a paramount concern. The current industrial solution to integrate these types of heterogeneous software components is the use of off-the-shelf (OTS) middleware products [4] and Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) tools. These products are targeted toward integrating applications throughout a network or a distributed system, allowing clients access to information and processes transparently [4]. A product may implement one or more middleware frameworks to provide integration solutions, such as publish-and- subscribe and object request broker. Other types of middleware frameworks include remote procedure call (RPC), which provides transparent, distributed procedure calls; message-oriented middleware (MOM), which provides messaging capability between applications; and extract-transform-load (ETL) which moves, copies and/or merges data between