Hi, I’d still like to hear your feedback on this, but wanted to update you on these definitions. Randy Heffner completed editing my report yesterday, and improved the definitions to this:

SOA interoperability is the ability of SOA services and infrastructure to work together by efficiently exchanging information at a specified quality of service level using common formats and protocols, which may be accomplished, at least in part, using mediation.

SOA federation enables diverse domains of SOA services and infrastructure to interoperate seamlessly and transparently as one by delegating among the SOA domains responsibilities such as service location, security, activation, mediation, policy enforcement, ensuring high quality-of-service (QoS), and many others.

So please respond to these new, improved versions!

Thanks,
Mike Gilpin

PS: Max, I saw your post. I think you have a good point, that done the wrong way, SOA can be too complex, and that federation can just be an effort to put lipstick on a pig (and yes, I chose that phrase on purpose!). But even in a well planned and good SOA implementation, these issues of interoperability and federation still come up.