An implementation of ISO 18876 will consist of a data store that provides at least one of the following services:

• providing persistent storage of instances of a model;
• providing facilities to create, read, update, and delete instances of a model;
• providing capabilities to merge different collections of instances of the model;
• providing capabilities to migrate data from one model to another;
• providing capabilities to view instances of one model according to another.

It is anticipated that ISO 18876 will specify a number of abstract services supporting data exchange, access, and sharing (at least) that can be implemented in different technologies. These abstract services may be specified in terms of pre- and post-conditions.

This subject has not been addressed in any detail within the SC4 Data Architecture PWI or the ISO 18876 project. Considerable further discussion is likely to be needed before these services can be fully documented and submitted for standardization.