Inter-enterprise Collaboration Management in Dynamic Business Networks

Abstract

Abstract. The agility to collaborate in several business networks has become essential for the success of enterprises. The dynamic nature of collaborations and the autonomy of enterprises creates new challenges for the operational computing environment. This paper describes the web-Pilarcos B2B middleware solutions for managing the life-cycle of dynamic business networks in an inter-enterprise environment. The use of B2B middleware moves the management challenges away from the individual enterprise applications to more global infrastructure services, and provides a level of automation into the establishment and maintenance. The middleware services aim for a rigorous level of transparent interoperability support, including awareness of collaboration processes, and collaboration level adaptation to breaches in operation.

Framework for Managing Features of Open Service Ecosystems

“…Monitoring supports the enactment and control phase of the collaboration in particular (Kutvonen, Metso, & Ruokolainen, 2005). It is done by each collaborator to protect local resources, keep track of the progress of the collaboration, and to ensure that partners follow the collaboration model.…”

Making Multi-Dimensional Trust Decisions on Inter-Enterprise Collaborations

“…The populator produces match proposals, and can be provided as a service by a third party, as it only relies on public information. Multilateral negotiations determine which proposal is accepted and whether some parameters of the service need to be further adjusted [8].…”

“…These, in turn, are formed by analyzing the output of the Pilarcos monitors [8]. The monitors are not aware of the particular assets being protected in the system, but only detect noteworthy events in the system connected to a business process; the trust management system needs a policy for translating the events into outcomes.…”

“…The information the decision is based on is preprocessed and quick to access; reputation information is constantly gathered through Pilarcos monitors [8] and processed in the background, and importance information is readily defined.…”

“…The tasks of the middleware include partner selection and negotiation, interoperability tests for technical and business aspects of services, collaboration lifecycle management with partner changes, and breach management [7], [8]. In developing this kind of middleware, a new approach to managing trust relationships between partners is required.…”