Interoperability is the ability of disparate systems to communicate and share information or resources with one another. In other words, it is the integrated compatibility established between two or more unlike systems to facilitate communication and data exchange by leveraging networking protocols. The most common example of interoperability is the client-server model that enables web browsers and web pages to exchange information.
Implementation of a comprehensive interoperable system involves highly technical protocols, standards, and APIs.
The interoperability between two or more systems is based on their ability to communicate, exchange, and interpret data in a way that is understood by the other. This can be achieved with the help of establishing syntactic interoperability.
Syntactic interoperability is the process of adopting a common data format and a common data structure, which allows the addition of metadata that helps connect each data element to a controlled and shared vocabulary. Much like people from completely different cultural and ethnic backgrounds using English to communicate. This shared vocabulary will house links to an ontology, which will serve as a data model to define the relationship between the systems. A lot like the English dictionary and a grammar rule book.