| 1. The ability of systems, units or forces to provide services to and accept services from other systems, units, or forces and to use the services so exchanged to enable them to operate effectively together.
2. Allows applications executing on separate hardware platforms, or in multi-processing environments on the same platform, to share data and cooperate in processing it through communications mechanisms such as remote procedure calls, transparent file access, etc.
3. The capability to provide useful and cost-effective interchange of electronic data among, e.g., different signal formats, transmission media, applications, industries, or performance levels. |