In this article we describe our experienceswith interoperable data management and instrument control standards in the WesternMediterranean Cabled Observatory, OBSEA(www.obsea.es) (Figure 1). The SARTI researchgroup of the Technical University of Catalonia in Vilanova i la Geltrú is in charge of OBSEA observatory development. SARTI collaborated with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) to explore interoperability issues withinthe ESONET project. One of the strong demands of ESONET is that a real-time data web interface from online observatories is needed. In order to do so, online data are urgently needed, and some proposed standards must be applied to ensure interoperabilitybetween instruments and data of multiple european observatories.