Network interoperability refers to the ability of systems that differ in implementation technology to reliably and accurately interchange information. This means that the factors, such as the underlying hardware, operating system, and implementation language, may differ between platforms, yet they will not adversely affect the ability of these systems to communicate.
There are several factors that can impact interoperability. These range from low-level issues, such as the byte order that is used by primitive data types, to higher-level technologies, such as web services that largely hide much of their implementation details. In this chapter, we will explore many of these factors.
We start with a discussion of the byte order that is used to support primitive data types. This is fundamental to the transfer of data. Different byte orders will result in significant differences in how information is interpreted.
Next, we will discuss how Java applications can...