Extended enterprise architecture with the FADEE.

Business-to-Business integration (B2Bi) is considered to be not merely an IT-issue, but also a business problem. This paper draws attention to the challenges companies within an Extended Enterprise are confronted with when integrating their systems. We primarily pay attention to coordination problems that may arise. To overcome these problems we propose the use of Enterprise Architecture descriptions. We discuss the powers of using Enterprise Architecture descriptions in integration exercises. It will become clear that doing Enterprise Architecture is no longer an option; it is mandatory. Furthermore, we present the FADEE, the Framework for the Architectural Description of the Extended Enterprise. This framework gives an overview of how companies can apply the Zachman framework to do Enterprise Architecture in the realm of the Extended Enterprise.Architecture; Business-to-Business integration; Companies; Coordination; Enterprise architecture; Extended enterprise; Extended enterprise architecture framework; FADEE; Framework; Integration; Problems; Research; Systems;

Identifying web service integration challenges.

Web services technology promises well for the future of Business-to-Business integration (B2Bi). However, this technology is still in its infancy and the community is facing many challenges. In this paper we discuss some important B2Bi issues and look how web services could play their part in these. Currently, many web services related standards are being drawn up, but most of these are still immature and do not bring a real answer to the proposed challenges. Consequently, many topics for future research can be identified.Information; Requirements; Cognitive; Integration; Community;

Adoption of Interorganizational Business Process Standards in Business-to-Business Integration: An Exploratory Study

We conducted an exploratory study to understand the factors that played important role in the adoption of RosettaNet-based interorganizational business process standards (IBPS) in business-to-business integration (B2Bi). We found 3 sets of drivers of IBPS adoption in organizations: i.e., external, internal, and instrumental. External factors include institutional pressures, standards uncertainty, and quality of interorganizational relationships. Internal factors include internal pressures, job change, technology readiness, ICT competence, and organizational culture. Finally, instrumental factors include perceived benefits, process compatibility, and complexity

A Requirements Analysis of Business-To-Business Integration

Ever fiercer competition has forced enterprises not only to optimize their own operations but also to cooperate with their suppliers and customers along their supply chains. Thus, competition today usually takes place between supply chains and not between individual enterprises. Business-To-Business integration (B2Bi) is a major task of supply chain management (SCM), and although it already has been researched for years, B2Bi is still an area of active research with a plethora of research questions and according approaches. Hence, management of B2Bi projects necessitates the identification of relevant requirements which is a far from trivial task. This paper identifies a core set of B2Bi challenges and deduces a comprehensive set of B2Bi requirements that are particularly useful for tackling the challenges identified. The derivation of B2Bi requirements follows an inductive approach that is based on the analysis of integration standards, reference architectures and related literature. In order to operationalize the B2Bi requirements for further analysis and concrete B2Bi projects, the requirements are classified according to the abstraction layers of a B2Bi schema. Thus, this report not only offers a requirements check list for B2Bi projects but also helps in deciding when to address which requirements during the course of a B2Bi project

Evaluation of JSON-API-Format REST API for Business-to-Business Integration Scenarios

API technology has brought about changes in the technology industry, especially in the ways that applications interact. It has created a different way for developers to interact with web services, applications, and resources over the internet. This way of interacting with data has spawned many applications and standards that businesses and companies have made use of to improve their products and services. REST is an architectural de-sign that prescribes a set of constraints for interacting with applications and web ser-vices. REST is widely used in the API industry and applications that support REST architecture are called RESTful services. For communication over the internet with web services and applications using REST, information has to be formatted and presented using formats that are efficient, concise, widely-used, and adaptable. JSON format fulfils these criteria. REST API in JSON for-mat is a common technology, and has been deployed to create the API technology, using Entity Framework Core, evaluated in this thesis document. Fatman Ltd. is a company that produces Facility Technical Management software prod-ucts. One of the main products is called Fatman Frame. As a response to the demands of the modern industry and customers, an API was created for Fatman Frame. The main subject of this thesis is the evaluation of Fatman Frame API product. This evaluation is done against the business demands and goals of Fatman Ltd., and the customers of the company. The API product is also evaluated against its own design goals. Pricing for the API product is also explored using the pricing systems that are common in the API industry. It is shown in this thesis that the API fulfils its basic design goals, and business demands.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

EzWeb/FAST: Reporting on a Successful Mashup-based Solution for Developing and Deploying Composite Applications in the Upcoming "Ubiquitous SOA"

Service oriented architectures (SOAs) based on Web services have attracted a great interest and IT investments during the last years, principally in the context of business-to-business integration within corporate Intranets. However, they are nowadays evolving to break through enterprise boundaries, in a revolutionary attempt to make the approach pervasive, leading to what we call the ubiquitous SOA, i.e. a SOA conceived as a Web of services made up of compositional resources that empowers end-users to ubiquitously exploit these resources by collaboratively remixing them. In this paper we explore the architectural basis, technologies, frameworks and tools considered necessary to face this novel vision of SOA. We also present the rationale behind EzWeb/FAST: an undergoing EU funded project whose first outcomes could serve as a preliminary proof of concep

EzWeb/FAST: Reporting on a Successful Mashup-based Solution for Developing and Deploying Composite Applications in the Upcoming Web of Services

Service oriented architectures (SOAs) based on Web Services have attracted a great interest and IT investments during the last years, principally in the context of business-to-business integration within corporate intranets. However, they are nowadays evolving to break through enterprise boundaries, in a revolutionary attempt to make the approach pervasive, leading to what we call a user-centric SOA, i.e. a SOA conceived as a Web of Services made up of compositional resources that empowers end-users to ubiquitously exploit these resources by collaboratively remixing them. In this paper we explore the architectural basis, technologies, frameworks and tools considered necessary to face this novel vision of SOA. We also present the rationale behind EzWeb/FAST: an undergoing EU funded project whose first outcomes could serve as a preliminary proof of concep

A user-centric approach for developing and deploying service front-ends in the future internet of services

Service-Oriented Architectures (SOAs) based on web services have attracted a great deal of interest and Internet Technology (IT) investment over the last few years, principally in the context of business-to-business integration within corporate intranets. However, they are now evolving and breaking through enterprise boundaries in a revolutionary attempt to make the approach pervasive. This is leading to what we call a user-centric SOA. A user-centric SOA is an SOA conceived as an internet of services made up of compositional resources empowering end users to collaboratively remix and ubiquitously exploit these resources. In this paper we explore the architectural basis, technologies, frameworks and tools considered necessary to tackle this novel vision of SOA. We also present the rationale behind Ez Web/FAST, an ongoing EU-funded project whose first outcomes could serve as a preliminary proof of concept

An Ontological Framework for Context-Aware Collaborative Business Process Formulation

In cross-enterprise collaborative environment, we have dealt with challenges in business process integration for common business goals. Research directions in this domain range from business to business integration (B2Bi) to service-oriented augmentation. Ontologies are used in Business Process Management (BPM) to reduce the gap between the business world and information technology (IT), especially in the context of cross enterprise collaboration. For a dynamic collaboration, virtual enterprises need to establish collaborative processes with appropriate matching levels of tasks. However, the problem of solving the semantics mismatching is still not tackled or even harder in case of querying space between different enterprise profiles as considered as ontologies. This article presents a framework based on the ontological and context awareness during the task integration and matching in order to form collaborative processes in the manner of cross enterprise collaboration

The Motives for B2B Integration: An Empirical Study

With the ongoing process of building business networks in today’s economy, business-to-business integration (B2B Integration) has become a strategic tool for utilizing and optimizing information exchange between business partners. Industry and academia have made remarkable progress in implementing and conceptualizing different kinds of electronic inter-company relationships in the last years. Nevertheless, academic findings generally focus exclusively on certain aspects of the research object, e.g. document standards, process integration or other descriptive criteria. Without a common framework these results stay unrelated and their mutual impact on each other remains largely unexplained. In this paper we explore motivational factors of B2B integration in practice. In a research project using a uniform taxonomy (eXperience methodology) we classified real-world B2B integration projects from a pool of over 400 case studies using a pre-developed framework for integration scenarios. The result of our partly exploratory research shows the influence of the role of a company in the supply chain and its motive to invest in a B2B solution