Electronic Business: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (4-Volumes) P17

Business Networking Figure 1. EU targeted research clusters for enterprise networking (Adapted after VE-Forum http://www. fe-forum.org—The European Research Clusters for Enterprise Networking) Interoperability ATHENA TrustCoM DigitalEcosystems Legal-IST Networking CrossWork Ist-Bonus MyCarEvent XBRL in Europe Ambient Intelligence Product Life Cycle Co DesNet PARADISE’-PROMISE X-Change VE-FORUM • Business networking cluster: aiming at designing and developing reference models and technologies supporting organiza-tions and professionals, enhancing their collaboration and agility, and at fostering the development of suitable VO breeding environments; relevant research projects in this area are: ECOLEAD (European COLlaborative networked organizations LEADership initiative, http://www.ecolead. org), CROSSWORK (Developing Cross-2UJDQL]DWLRQDO :RUNÀRZ )RUPDWLRQ DQG Enactment, http://www.crosswork.info), VE-Forum (the European forum for virtual organizations domains,http://www.ve-forum. org). • Enterprise interoperability: aiming at developing open and secure technologies to connect system and enterprises. Enterprise interoperability is addressed at different levels: physical integration, syntactic ap-plication integration, semantic application integration, business process integration, inter-enterprise coordination. ATHENA (Advanced Technologies for interoperability of Heterogeneous Enterprise Networks and their Applications, http://www.athena-ip.org) and INTEROP (Interoperability Research for Networked Enterprises Applications and Software, http://www.interop-noe.org) are relevant research projects in this area. • The ambient intelligence technologies for the product life-cycle cluster: aiming at enabling organizations, in a networked busi-ness environment, to deliver better products WRWKHPDUNHWLQDPRUHHI¿FLHQWZD\DQG faster, by enhancing the product and the product life-cycle processes using ambient intelligence technologies; CO-DESNET (Collaborative Demand and Supply NET-works, http://codesnet.polito.it is a relevant research project in this area. • Digital ecosystems:aiming at providing to small and micro-systems ICT applications DQGVHUYLFHVZKLFKLPSURYHWKHLUHI¿FLHQF\ and business integration within EU regions; SATINE (Semantic-based Interoperability Infrastructure for Integrating Web Service Platforms to Peer-to-Peer Networks, http:// www.srdc.metu.edu.tr) is a relevant project in this area. 94 Business Networking Reference Models, Standards, Frameworks, and Technologies Supporting Enterprise Integration and Interoperability Several reference models, frameworks, and stan-dards have been developed aiming at supporting enterprise integration and interoperability. This section concisely presents some integration refer-ence models, frameworks, and standards referring to B2B domain, and relevant infrastructures and technologies supporting enterprise integration and interoperability. According to Vernadat (1996), a reference model represents a partial model, which can be used as a basis for certain model devel-RSPHQWVRUHYDOXDWLRQV7KHWHUP³IUDPHZRUN´ refers to a collection of elements (e.g., principles, methods, tools) put together for a certain purpose, and relevant for a given domain of application. Standards can be regarded as objects (e.g., hard-ware, software), which are accepted and shared within a community (i.e., business unit, value chain) (Crargill, 1989). A. Reference Models, Architectures, and Frameworks Purdue Enterprise Reference Architecture (PERA) provides the reference model of physical and informational interactions in enterprises (Li & Williams, 2000). An extension of the model is presented in Li and Williams (2003), which aims at enhancing the functionality of PERA as reference model for a distributed enterprises environment (e.g., VE), where the business processes in a group of enterprises are synchronously and simultane-ously executed via information exchange. Generalized Enterprise Reference Architec-ture and Methodology (GERAM) (IFAC/IFIP, GH¿QHVDWRRONLWRIFRQFHSWVIRUGHVLJQLQJ and maintaining enterprises for their entire life history. GERAM refers to the methods, models, and tools, which are needed to build and maintain the integrated enterprise, a single enterprise or a network of enterprises. GERAM encapsulates and orders previous architectures (e.g., CIMOSA, PERA, GRAI/GIM), providing an overall struc-ture to use those methods and modeling tech-niques. GERAM is not a reference architecture; it is aimed at organizing enterprises’ existing integration knowledge, and its framework has the potential for application to all types of enterprises by describing the components needed in all en-terprises’ engineering and integration processes. Generalized Enterprise Reference Architecture (GERA) is GERAM’s most important component. ,WLGHQWL¿HVEDVLFFRQFHSWVWREHXVHGLQHQWHUSULVH engineering and integration. Supply chain operations reference model (SCOR) (http://www.supply-chain.org) is a process reference model developed by the Supply-Chain Council as a cross-industry standard for supply-chain management used to describe, measure, DQGHYDOXDWHVXSSO\FKDLQFRQ¿JXUDWLRQV7KH 6&25PRGHOLVRUJDQL]HGDURXQG¿YHSULPDU\ management processes: plan, source, make, de-liver, and return. It is composed by a hierarchic architecture of four level details: top level (process W\SHVFRQ¿JXUDWLRQOHYHOSURFHVVFDWHJRULHV process element level (decompose processes), and implementation level (decompose process elements). Zachman’s framework for enterprise architec-ture (Zachman, 1987) describes a holistic model of an enterprise information infrastructure from six perspectives: planner, owner, designer, builder, subcontractor, and working system. Its focus is to ensure that all aspects of an enterprise are well-organized and exhibit clear relationships that will ensure a complete system regardless of the order in which they are established. :RUNÀRZUHIHUHQFHPRGHO:RUNÀRZ0DQ-agement Coalition, 1999) provides the general DUFKLWHFWXUDOIUDPHZRUNWKDWLGHQWL¿HVLQWHUIDFHV DQGFRYHUVEURDGO\¿YHDUHDVRIIXQFWLRQDOLW\EH-tween a ZRUNÀRZPDQDJHPHQWV\VWHP:I06 DQGLWVHQYLURQPHQWSURFHVVGH¿QLWLRQVLPSRUW and export; interaction with client applications 95 Business Networking and work-list handler software; software tools or applications invocation; interoperability between different WfMSs; and administration and moni-toring functions. B. Business-to-Business Integration Standards In a broad sense, the term business-to-business (B2B) integration refers to electronic message ex-change among trading partners. It includes issues VXFKDVSURGXFWFDWDORJVFODVVL¿FDWLRQV\VWHPV B2B protocol standards, synchronous/asynchro-nous communication, or back-end integration. According to Bussler (2003), B2B integration is the enabling technology and the necessary in-frastructure to perform different operations: for example, automated supply chain integration, to send XML-formatted messages over the Internet, or to send messages in a peer-to-peer (P2P) pat-tern to trading partners. According to SWWS (2003), B2B standards’ scope can be roughly separated into catalogue and FODVVL¿FDWLRQVWDQGDUGVGRFXPHQWH[FKDQJHFRO-laboration, and business processes, as follows: http://www.cxml.org), Open Applications *URXS ,QWHJUDWLRQ 6SHFL¿FDWLRQ 2$*,6 http://www.openapplications.org), Roset-taNet implementation framework (RNIF, http://www.rosettanet.org), and Society For World-wide Interbank Financial Telecom-munications (SWIFT) standard modeling (http://www.swift.com). • Collaboration includes Electronic Busi-ness XML Initiative (ebXML, http://www. ebxml.org), Universal Business Language (UBL, http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl), and RosettaNet (http://www.rosettanet.org) • Business processes refer to executable busi-ness processes, ebXML business collabo-rations (http://www.ebxml.org), business SURFHVVDFWLYLWLHVRUZRUNÀRZVBusiness Process Modeling Language (BPML)/ Business Process Query Language (BPQL), Web Services Flow Language (WSFL), Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS), XML Process-ing Description Language (XPDL), 8QL¿HG Modeling Language, (UML, http://www. uml.org), and 3URFHVV6SHFL¿FDWLRQ/DQ-guage (PSL, http://www.nist.gov.psl) are • Catalogue systems and classification standards include: BMEcat (http://www. bmecat.org), eCX (Electronic Catalog XML, http://www.ecx-xml.org), OCP (Open Catalog Protocol, http://www.martsoft. com/ocp) as catalogue systems, and eCl@ss (http://www.eclass-online.com) or UNSPSC (United Nations Standard Products and Services Code, http://www.unspsc.org) as FODVVL¿FDWLRQVWDQGDUGV • Document exchange comprises electronic data interchange (EDI), electronic data interchange for administration, commerce and transport (EDIFACT), eXtensible Markup Language (XML, http://www. xml.org), XML common business library (xCBL, http://www.xcbl.org), Commerce eXtensible Markup Language (cXML, only some of the modeling languages dealing with business processes. Other relevant developments for enterprise in-tegration are: Open Buying on the Internet (OBI), Bolero.net, eCo framework, business transaction protocol (BTP), Transaction Authority Markup Language (XAML), and Microsoft BizTalk. CNO require advanced infrastructures provid-ing capabilities such as: multi-level support for LQWHURSHUDELOLW\ VHFXULW\ UHFRQ¿JXUDWLRQ DQG recovery mechanisms. The following section presents some relevant platforms and technolo-gies for CNOs. C. Infrastructures and Technologies An overview of the current approaches and WUHQGVWRZDUGVWKHHVWDEOLVKPHQWRIÀH[LEOHDQG 96 Business Networking FRQ¿JXUDEOHLQIUDVWUXFWXUHVIRU9(LVSUHVHQWHG in Camarinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh (2003). (PHUJLQJWHFKQRORJLHVIRUÀH[LEOH9(LQIUDVWUXF-tures are grouped as follows: frastructures are: National Industrial Information Infrastructure Protocols (NIIIP, http://www.niiip. org), Production Planning and Management in an Extended Enterprise (PRODNET II, http://www. uninova.pt/~prodne ), and Virtual Enterprises using • Open inter-operable underlying network pro-tocols (e.g., TCP/IP, CORBA-IIOP, HTTP, RMI, SOAP) • Open distributed object-oriented middleware services (e.g., J2EE Framework, CORBA Framework, Active X Framework) • Information/object exchange mechanisms and tools (e.g., XML, ebXML, WSDL) • Standardized modeling of business compo-nents, processes, and objects (e.g., EJBs) • Business process modeling tools and lan-guages (e.g., UML, UEML, WfMC XML-based Business Language, PSL) • Open and standard business process auto-PDWLRQDQGZRUNÀRZPDQDJHPHQWV\VWHP (e.g., WfMC, OMG-JointFlow) • Standard interfacing to federated multi-databases (e.g., JDBC) • Intelligent mobile agents (e.g., FIPA, OMG-MASIF, Mobile Objects) • Open and standard distributed messaging middleware systems (e.g., JMS, MS-mes-sage server, MQSeries, FIPA-ACC) • XML-based e-commerce protocols (e.g., BizTalk, RosettaNet, OBI, WIDL) • Web integration technologies (e.g., Servlets, JSP, MS-ASP, XSL) Groupware tools and distributed Architectures (VEGA) (Zarli & Poyet, 2001), which aimed at designing open platforms to support the basic information exchange and cooperation needs in industrial VE. For ABI, enterprises are represented as agents, and the interactions in a distributed multi-agent system determine inter-enterprise cooperation. Multi-agent Manufacturing Agile Scheduling Systems for Virtual Enterprises (MASSYVE, http://www.cordis.lu/esprit/src/962219.htm) and Dy-namic Forecast for Master Production Planning with stock and capacity constraints (DAMAS-CUS, http://www.damascos.com) are examples of projects developing such infrastructures. Table 1 presents infrastructure characteris-tics of PRODNET II, NIIIP, DAMASCUS, and VEGA projects. A more in-depth analysis concerning trends in VE support infrastructures is available in Camarinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh (2003). The authors present also limitations for current VE/VO infrastructures and collaborative frameworks. The PDLQSUREOHPVLGHQWL¿HGFRQFHUQWKHODFNRIHI-fective approach to interoperability (e.g., software inter-operation, information exchange/integra-WLRQDQGWKHODFNRIVWDQGDUGGH¿QLWLRQVDQG Concerning infrastructures to support VE, Ca-marinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh (2003) illustrate two of the main approaches (from the software engineering perspective): transaction-oriented layer (TOL) based frameworks, and agent-based infrastructures (ABI). TOL infrastructures add a cooperation layer to the existing IT platforms of the enterprises, and inter-enterprise communication is performed through layers interaction (e.g., transaction-ori-ented). Examples of projects developing such in- mechanisms. As pointed out by Camarinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh (2003), most of the technologies supporting integration and interoperability in a networked environment are at their beginnings, and they require considerable effort to implement DQGFRQ¿JXUHUHOLDEOHLQIUDVWUXFWXUHVVXSSRUWLQJ CNO creation and development. Several research projects are currently being pursued in the area of grid technology. Grids facilitate the sharing, selection, and aggregation of geographically-distributed resources (e.g., su-percomputers, storage systems), which can cross 97 Business Networking Table 1. Examples of infrastructure characteristics and typical services offered single or multiple organizations, aiming at solv-ing large-scale computational and data-intensive problems in science, engineering, and commerce (http://www.gridcomputing.com). Unlike other approaches (e.g., clusters, where the resources’ allocation is performed by a centralized resource manager and all nodes cooperatively work together 98 ... - tailieumienphi.vn