Contextualized B2B Registries

Abstract. Service discovery is a fundamental concept underpinning the move towards dynamic service-oriented business partnerships. The business process for integrating service discovery and underlying registry technologies into business relationships, procurement and project management functions has not been examined and hence existing Web Service registries lack capabilities required by business today. In this paper we present a novel contextualized B2B registry that supports dynamic registration and discovery of resources within management contexts to ensure that the search space is constrained to the scope of authorized and legitimate resources only. We describe how the registry has been deployed in three case studies from important economic sectors (aerospace, automotive, pharmaceutical) showing how contextualized discovery can support distributed product development processes

Enterprise extension through extensible markup language

An extended enterprise is comprised of multiple linkages between and amongst a company and its suppliers, distributors, customers and others. Linkages are long term collaborative agreements based on synergies and the ability to create value. An extended enterprise eliminates wasteful transaction costs and removes redundancies, delays and inefficiencies from the supply chain. This is accomplished through the coordination of demand forecasting, production planning, deployment and transportation as well as creating organizational and process links with seamless information flows between them. Extended enterprise is enabled by developments in technology, especially information technology. Sharing information about sales forecast, production schedules, inventory, etc. makes an extended enterprise a win/win situation. Extended enterprise networks have used information technology systems such as electronic data interchanges, enterprise resource planning, and the Internet with different degrees of success. The Integrated Manufacturing Technology Initiative has identified several information technology criteria as critical to the success of future enterprises. Based on these criteria, this paper discusses XML’s contribution to the extended enterprise paradigm. Dell’s direct sale model is used to illustrate the role of XML in enterprise extension.Una empresa extendida está compuesta de varios enlaces entre una compañía y sus proveedores, distribuidores, clientes y demás. Estas uniones son acuerdos a largo plazo basados en la sinergia y en la habilidad de crear valor. Una empresa extendida elimina los costes de transacción innecesarios y retira las redundancias, atrasos e ineficiencias de la cadena de suministros. Esto se consigue mediante la coordinación de la demanda, la planificación de la producción, desempleo y transporte así como crear procesos organizativos y enlaces con información que fluye a través de estas partes. Una empresa extendida es posible gracias al Desarrollo en tecnología, especialmente la de la información. Compartir información sobre las ventas, el calendario de producción, el inventario, etc, permite a la empresa situarse en una situación de beneficio. Sus redes de trabajo han empleado la tecnología de la información como intercambios de datos electrónicos, planificación de recursos, y el internet con diferentes grados de éxito. La Iniciativa Artesana de Tecnología Hecha a Mano ha identificado ciertos criterios que resultan críticos para el éxito de las siguientes operaciones y empresas. Basados en estos criterios, este artículo discute la contribución de XML al paradigma de las empresas extendidas. El modelo de ventas directo de Dell se utiliza para ilustrar el papel de XML a la extensión de empresas

Connectivity via Web Services: An Analysis for Interoperable E-Commerce.

The Web Services platform depicts a systematic, inter operable, and messaging infrastructure on which enterprise systems build sophisticated and dynamic applications for data mobility on the web. This article examine how scalability and interoperability of data using Web Services can promises a dramatic progression for both the technological and the business aspects of ecommerce

An XML-based framework for electronic business document integration with relational databases

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are becoming increasingly engaged in B2B interactions. The ubiquitousness of the Internet and the quasi-reliance on electronic document exchanges with larger trading partners have fostered this move. The main technical challenge that this brings to SMEs is that of business document integration: they need to exchange business documents with heterogeneous document formats and also integrate these documents with internal information systems. Often they can not afford using expensive, customized and proprietary solutions for document exchange and storage. Rather they need cost-effective approaches designed based on open standards and backed with easy-to-use information systems. In this dissertation, we investigate the problem of business document integration for SMEs following a design science methodology. We propose a framework and conceptual architecture for a business document integration system (BDIS). By studying existing business document formats, we recommend using the GS1 XML standard format as the intermediate format for business documents in BDIS. The GS1 standards are widely used in supply chains and logistics globally. We present an architecture for BDIS consisting of two layers: one for the design of internal information system based on relational databases, capable of storing XML business documents, and the other enabling the exchange of heterogeneous business documents at runtime. For the design layer, we leverage existing XML schema conversion approaches, and extend them, to propose a customized and novel approach for converting GS1 XML document schemas into relational schemas. For the runtime layer, we propose wrappers as architectural components for the conversion of various electronic documents formats into the GS1 XML format. We demonstrate our approach through a case study involving a GS1 XML business document. We have implemented a prototype BDIS. We have evaluated and compared it with existing research and commercial tools for XML to relational schema conversion. The results show that it generates operational and simpler relational schemas for GS1 XML documents. In conclusion, the proposed framework enables SMEs to engage effectively in electronic business

Web Services-Enhanced Agile Modeling and Integrating Business Processes

In a global business context with continuous changes, the enterprises have to enhance their operational efficiency, to react more quickly, to ensure the flexibility of their business processes, and to build new collaboration pathways with external partners. To achieve this goal, they must use e-business methods, mechanisms and techniques while capitalizing on the potential of new information and communication technologies. In this context, we propose a standards, model and Web services-based approach for modeling and integrating agile enterprise business processes. The purpose is to benefit from Web services characteristics to enhance the processes design and realize their dynamic integration. The choice of focusing on Web services is essentially justified by their broad adoption by enterprises as well as their capability to warranty interoperability between both intra and inter-enterprises systems. Thereby, we propose in this chapter a metamodel for describing business processes, and discuss their dynamic integration by addressing the Web services discovery issue. On the one hand, the proposed metamodel is in line with the W3C Web services standards, namely, WSDL, SAWSDL and WS-Policy. It considers the use of BPMN standard to describe the behavioral aspect of business processes and completes their design using UML diagrams describing their functional, non-functional and semantic aspects. On other hand, our approach for integrating processes is in line with BPEL standard recommended to orchestrate Web services. To realize executable business processes, this approach recommends the use of semantic matching and selection mechanisms in order to produce agile systems.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, Book chapte

A New Design for Open and Scalable Collaboration of Independent Databases in Digitally Connected Enterprises

“Digitally connected enterprises” refers to e-business, global supply chains, and other new business designs of the Knowledge Economy; all of which require open and scalable information supply chains across independent enterprises. Connecting proprietarily designed and controlled enterprise databases in these information supply chains is a critical success factor for them. Previous connection designs tend to rely on “hard-coded” regimes, which do not respond well to disruptions (including changes and failures), and do not afford these enterprises sufficient flexibility to join simultaneously in multiple supply chain regimes and share information for the benefit of all. The paper develops a new design: It combines matchmaking with global database query, and thereby supports the interoperation of independent databases to form on-demand information supply chains. The design provides flexible (re-)configuration to decrease the impact of disruption, and proactive control to increase collaboration and information sharing. More broadly, the papers results contribute to a new Information System design method for massively extended enterprises, and facilitate new business designs using digital connections at the level of databases

ebXML: Global Standard for Electronic Business

Business-to-business integration is transforming the market and has already begun to increase the efficiency of those companies involved. EDI (Electronic Document Interchange) became very popular during 1970’s; Today EDI transactions total about $750 billion year. EDI is being used by 90% of Fortune 1000 companies. It has indeed become a dominant technology for the largest companies, on the other hand it has been adopted by less than 5% of small and medium sized companies in general and, of these, many use EDI only because their larger customers require it. The reason behind is that EDI is a difficult, complex technology to implement usually comes with high transactional cost. Hence it is suitable for large companies with large volume of transactions. EDI uses fixed, rigid and compressed data format that is difficult to decipher and debug. The data exchange in EDI happens in proprietary VAN (value added network) which is an expensive solution. EbXML (Electronic Business XML) envisioned creating a single global electronic marketplace where enterprises of any size and in any geographic location can meet and conduct business with each other through exchange of xml based messages. The XML (the Extensible Markup Language) has rapidly imposed itself as a popular format for exchange of information on the web. The very nature of XML is that it is a structured document format, in that it represents not only the information to be exchanged, but the metadata encapsulating its meaning. XML technology has potential to solve the existing problems in current EDI systems. Using ebXML, companies have a standard method to exchange business messages, conduct trading relationships, communicate data in common terms and define and register business processes. EbXML is designed to provide a simple way for companies to find one another and conduct business over the Web, allowing those with different platforms to speak a common language. EbXML targets to provide low cost solutions for small and medium enterprises as well as complex solution for large enterprises. This project attempts to implement a prototype of ebXML messaging service as per ebXML specification to obtain the insight look of feasibility and suitability of XML solution for EDI