Patent ID: 8311972

Claim:
In a collection of enterprises which uses a data communication systems network comprising a plurality of disparate data communication systems, a method of building a data integration environment, the method comprising the steps of: (a) establishing a predetermined set of rules about data based upon a data framework, a set of hierarchical classification (or ontology) rules and attribute rules for each disparate data communication system of the network; (b) replicating at least one set of rules representative of one of the systems and transferring said replicated set of rules to one or more other said systems of the network; (c) negotiating, based on processing capabilities of the systems to and from which the at least one set of rules were replicated, a common rules set between the integration environment and the systems, by merging the rules about the data associated with the systems; (d) loading the merged rules into the integration environment rule base and selectively populating the datastore implementing the data integration environment with rules data from each of the systems; and (e) effecting data exchange between each of said systems and the integration environment in accordance with the newly-established rule set so as to allow the disparate systems to interoperate with each other.