A Hybrid Framework for Automated and Adaptive E-Business Platforms

The automation of business transactions between corporations has been dominated by proprietary and inflexible EDI solutions for a long time. During the last years, novel XML-based standards emerged which have a wider scope than EDI but strongly differ with regard to granularity and industry-focus. Due to the abundance of many complex standards with limited diffusion among users and industries, especially small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have not yet managed to automate the execution of business transactions and to seamlessly interconnect their respective IT applications. In this work, we propose a novel approach which builds on a composite of existing standards and combines them towards a hybrid architecture facilitating electronic business transactions. The Web Service stack represents the technical foundation of this approach, while parts of the ebXML standard are leveraged to ensure a common understanding of business information and processes between trading partners. A central server acts as repository of formal agreements, common data and process modeling artifacts and allows for intermittent connectivity of the users. Decentral adapter components enable connecting heterogeneous legacy applications of the users to the central server. The resulting approach can thus be considered as hybrid regarding the degree of centralism involved and with respect to the combination of the Web services stack and the ebXML standard as an infrastructural foundation

Web 2.0-Entwicklung — ewige Beta-Version

Zusammenfassung: Eine neue Generation von internetbasierten Community-Plattformen wie YouTube, Flickr oder del.icio.us hat in den letzten Jahren groβes Interesse in Forschung und Industrie hervorgerufen. Diese Plattformen beziehen den Nutzer als zentralen Teil des Applikationsdesigns explizit mit ein und prägen einen neuen Trend in der Entwicklung von Web-Anwendungen. Zahlreiche Funktionalitäten, die exakt den Bedürfnissen der Nutzer entsprechen, können so bereitgestellt und kontinuierlich weiterentwickelt werden. Dem Paradigma der ewigen Beta-Version entsprechend, stellen Web 2.0-basierte Anwendungen keine statischen Softwareartefakte mehr da. Sie sind vielmehr dezentrale Dienste, die sowohl von Nutzern als auch von Betreibern ständig angepasst werden können. Die fortwährende Anpassung von Web 2.0-Plattformen stellt insbesondere an den Entwicklungsprozess neue Anforderungen. Durch Anwendung von klassischen Methoden der Softwareentwicklung können diese nicht erfüllt werden. Dieser Artikel beschreibt damit verbundene Herausforderungen und mögliche Lösungsansätze und illustriert diese mit zahlreichen Beispiele

Enhancing User-Service Interaction Through a Global User-Centric Approach to SOA

Considered as enablers of seamless application-to- application integration both within company boundaries and on a global scale, Web Services-based SOAs have traditionally focused on automating service-to-service collaboration. However, they have never featured a "face " to human users. This gap between human users and services still prevents enterprises from realizing how innovations at the SOA front-end help to make people more productive. And, ultimately, it hinders the emergence of a real Web of Services driven by a global, user-centric SOA. In this paper, we revisit the notion of SOA and analyze its major shortcomings with regard to the emergence of a Web of Services enhancing user-service interaction and increased service usability. We then elaborate on novel, currently emerging technologies that facilitate the establishment of the global mesh of interoperable user-centric services. A novel platform architecture is presented that builds on all the key technical enablers

TOWARDS CROSS-ORGANISATIONAL E-GOVERNMENT: AN INTEGRATED APPROACH

One of the most challenging issues in current e-Government initiatives is the seamless exchange of information and the efficient collaboration between public administrations, companies and the private sector. Either from an intra- or cross-organisational point of view spanning processes across multiple authorities leads to a collaboration of autonomous units under consideration of law and regulations. Despite the organisational dimension current approaches are mainly technical solutions – e.g. interoperability frameworks. Within this paper we present an integrated approach which incorporates organisational aspects of the public sector and which supports the correspondent implementation of solutions for cross-organisational e-Government by adopting Model-Driven-Development practices

A Core Component-Based Modelling Approach for Achieving e-Business Semantics Interoperability

The adoption of advanced integration technologies that enable private and public organizations to seamlessly execute their business transactions electronically is still relatively low, especially among governmental bodies and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). Current solutions often lack a common understanding of the underlying business document semantics and most existing approaches are not able to cope with the huge variety of business document formats, stemming from highly diverse requirements of the different stakeholders. Developed and applied in the course of the EU-funded research project GENESIS, this paper presents a comprehensive core component-based business document modelling approach that builds upon existing standards such as the OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) and the UN/CEFACT Core Component Technical Specification (CCTS). These standards are extended by introducing the concept of generic business document templates out of which specific documents can be derived according to the actual user’s needs. Key principle to achieve this flexibility is the integration of business context information that allows for modelling standard-based but at the same time customized business documents. The resulting modelling framework ranges from (tool-supported) graphical data models to the technical representation of the business documents as XML schema documents designed in compliance with the UN/CEFACT XML schema Naming and Design Rules (NDR)

A hybrid framework for automated and adaptive e-business platforms

The automation of business transactions between corporations has been dominated by proprietary and inflexible EDI solutions for a long time. During the last years, novel XML-based standards emerged which have a wider scope than EDI but strongly differ with regard to granularity and industry-focus. Due to the abundance of many complex standards with limited diffusion among users and industries, especially small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have not yet managed to automate the execution of business transactions and to seamlessly interconnect their respective IT applications. In this work, we propose a novel approach which builds on a composite of existing standards and combines them towards a hybrid architecture facilitating electronic business transactions. The Web Service stack represents the technical foundation of this approach, while parts of the ebXML standard are leveraged to ensure a common understanding of business information and processes between trading partners. A central server acts as repository of formal agreements, common data and process modeling artifacts and allows for intermittent connectivity of the users. Decentral adapter components enable connecting heterogeneous legacy applications of the users to the central server. The resulting approach can thus be considered as hybrid regarding the degree of centralism involved and with respect to the combination of the Web services stack and the ebXML standard as an infrastructural foundation

A Holistic Architecture for Collaborative and Highly Automatized eBusiness Platforms

In this work, we propose an e-Business architecture that takes into account the specific needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and present a modeldriven, highly flexible and collaborative approach that fosters cross-organizational interoperability. The specifications defined by the standardization body UN/CEFACT (e.g. UN/CEFACT Modeling Methodology, Core Component Technical Specification) and the ebXML standard are central composites of our novel holistic framework that aims at reducing effort required for performing business transactions. The introduction of methods for automatized business process and data negotiation is a further cornerstone of this work. 1

GESCHÄFTSMODELLE FÜR ORGANISATIONSÜBERGREIFENDE BUSINESS SERVICES IM E-GOVERNMENT

Die durchgängige Abwicklung elektronischer Geschäftsprozesse über Unternehmensgrenzen hinweg hat zuletzt insbesondere im privatwirtschaftlichen Sektor erhebliche Fortschritte gemacht. Die Umsetzung von E-Government Bereich konnte mit diesem schnellen Wandel bislang nicht mithalten. Für einen erfolgreichen Einsatz moderner E-Government Architekturen reicht jedoch deren blosse technische Implementierung, insbesondere in föderalistisch organisierten Staaten, nicht aus. Die Entwicklung und Bewertung von Geschäftsmodellen für diese neuartigen Plattformen ist ebenso wichtig, um Akzeptanz und weite Verbreitung sicherzustellen. In dem vorliegenden Beitrag wird daher ein Geschäftsmodellframework für organisationsübergreifende EGovernment Business Services entwickelt. Dieses wird anhand der HERA Referenzarchitektur im Kontext der Schweiz in verschiedenen Optionen instanziiert und bewertet

Enterprise Mashups: Design Principles towards the Long Tail of User Needs

A new type of Web-based applications, known as Enterprise Mashups, has been gaining momentum in the last years. Novel design principles are currently about to emerge allowing to cover the long tail of user needs and to provide individual and heterogeneous enterprise applications in a shorter time. In this paper, we introduce the main components of this new paradigm, and discuss the design principles of the architecture (Enterprise Mashup Stack), upcoming intermediaries and mass collaboration, lightweight composition as well as perpetual beta development model. 1