The Inventory IOD is defined in the category of non-patient-root DICOM composite objects. As such, its basic SOP Class for DICOM network transfer is specified in the Non-Patient Object Storage Service Class (Annex GG “Non-Patient Object Storage Service Class” in PS3.4 and Section 9.1.1 “C-STORE Service” in PS3.7). Inventory objects may also be transferred using DICOM Media Interchange (Annex I “Media Storage Service Class (Normative)” in PS3.4 and PS3.10).

Query/Retrieve of Inventory SOP Instances is specified in the Inventory Query/Retrieve Service Class (Annex JJ “Inventory Query/Retrieve Service Class” in PS3.4). Query/Retrieve of Inventory SOP Instances uses the same C-FIND, C-MOVE, and C-GET DIMSE services as other Query/Retrieve Service Classes.

Inventory Query returns key information about available Inventory SOP Instances, including Content Date and Time, Scope of Inventory, and Completion Status. This allows the Query SCU to obtain a list of available Inventory objects and determine whether any of them meet the SCU's needs, rather than initiating creation of a new Inventory.

Inventory SOP Instances may also be exchanged using DICOM web-based (HTTP) services. The equivalent of the Storage and Query/Retrieve Services is specified for the web through the Non-Patient Instance Services (see Section 12 “Non-Patient Instance Service and Resources” in PS3.18).

Due to the potentially very large size of Inventory SOP Instances, the creator may make them available through a non-DICOM file access protocol. Such a protocol may allow interactive reading of files, rather than transfer as a whole to the destination system (see Section YYYY.7.6).