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Agent and Web Service Technologies in Virtual Enterprises
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Author(s)/Editor(s): Nicolaos Protogeros (University of Macedonia, Greece)
Copyright: ©2008
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59904-648-8
ISBN13: 9781599046488
ISBN10: 1599046482
EISBN13: 9781599046501
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DescriptionResearch on new technologies for the virtual enterprise operation has opened up new ideas on the design principles and operation approaches in order to maximize benefits and overcome limitations encountered. Agent and Web Service Technologies in Virtual Enterprises provides a comprehensive review of the most recent advances in agent and Web service technologies, integrating the most recent contributions supporting formation, integration, collaboration, and operation in virtual enterprises. This Premier Reference Source enables libraries to provide researchers with a deep and thorough understanding of the benefits and issues surrounding agents and Web service technologies, and practical insights from examples of applications of these technologies throughout various aspects of the virtual enterprise life cycle.
PrefaceIntroduction
The shift from the industrial economy to the information economy that has happened over the years has
led to an enormous increase in competitiveness among companies. This in turn has led to the development
of information technology to highly advanced levels. It is now able to support modern enterprise
operation in extremely intricate environments where the changing needs of the business community
forces firms to be more agile and responsive. The development of technologies that can efficiently handle
complex information such as software agents, combined with the development of Internet technologies
for business process integration and automation such as Web services, is causing considerable impact
on the way economic actors and their roles are implemented in the worldwide market place. This technological
evolution has lead to the development of a new value-creating economic paradigm, where the
concepts of extended enterprise, the agile enterprise, the smart organization, and the virtual enterprise
are starting to hold an important position.
The network based information economy and the virtual-yet-real enterprises are a promising reality.
Research on new technologies for the virtual enterprise has released new roads to the design principles
and operation approaches, done in order to maximize benefits and overcome any limitations encountered
so far, in the real life of the virtual enterprise. New theories and technologies such as agent and Web
service supported formation and operation, collaboration requirement planning, active middleware for
virtual enterprise operation support and operational parallelism¡ªsome of them covered by chapters in
this book¡ªpresent a concrete design framework for virtual enterprise successful operation. At the same
time, serious challenges to the future effectiveness of virtual enterprises are also sensed and discussed
throughout this book.
In a virtual enterprise, sets of economic actors combine their strengths to provide a specific service
traditionally provided by a single enterprise. Such possibilities can greatly influence the economy and
enterprise development strategies, and in the long term this will help small and medium enterprises
capitalize on the information economy. Historically speaking, small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
have founded their competitiveness on static established co-operations, which were based on personal
relationships and on the proximity of the involved companies¡¯ locations. Groups of SMEs have demonstrated
in several regions of Europe and the USA, the ability to successfully exploit a business opportunity
that none of its members had the financial and technological ability to realize individually.
This approach, although effective in the past, is showing its limitations regarding its capability to face
the requirements of the global market, where the search for competitiveness cannot be limited by geographical
and personal constraints.
Yet, if we could find a way to exploit the tremendous advancement of ICT and the promises of the
border-less electronic market, in order to harvest the cultural attitude toward cooperation of SMEs, and
transpose it from its local environment to the worldwide market, we would unleash a tremendous com
petitive potential in the world global market. Moreover, within both the overall Industrial Policy and
the Enterprise Policy, there is a clear imperative to support initiatives that will facilitate and enhance the
current operation of SMEs ¡°daily¡± and ¡°routine¡± working activities. Particularly, the European Commission
White Paper on Growth, Competitiveness and Employment proposed a synergetic strategy to ensure
the mobilization of economic operators to support the development of 17 million European SMEs (the
number of European SMEs equalizes the number of the unemployed).
Virtual enterprises allow businesses to concentrate on their best skills and be flexible within their
environments. Their strategic guideline is the electronic commerce model and more specifically the
cooperative business or B2B scenario, where the virtual enterprise offered a new and major step. It
defied the conventional organization operation scenario by accomplishing tasks traditionally meant for
an organization much bigger with lots of financial, human and technical resources. This is made possible
due to there being a collaborative effort. A company having the right know-how, another with the
technical capability, the other with the right human skill set, can come together across the Internet to
aggregate it all. The Information Economy gifts a virtual enterprise composition for entrepreneurs who
want to achieve their dreams (Wikipedia).
Virtual enterprises are a major trend in cooperative business. Specialization and flexibility are some
of the key aspects of an every day more dynamic and global market. The concept of virtual enterprise has
been applied to many forms of cooperative business relations, like supply chains, construction industry,
outsourcing or temporary consortiums.
As with all types of enterprises, virtual enterprises present both benefits and challenges. Organizations
can benefit from virtual enterprises through more business opportunities, lower cost connections with
suppliers, more chances to create revenue, more efficient operations, and a reduction in administrative
costs. The challenges facing virtual enterprises are integration difficulties, security, expense control,
inexperienced users and the level of incorporation required to create a successful virtual enterprise (Sun
Microsystems, Inc., 2004).
One of the ideas driving virtual enterprise creation is that of processes dynamically constructed out
of available Internet-based services, as needed at runtime. In the late 1980¡¯s, Marty Tenenbaum talked
about a ¡°sea of services¡± on the Internet that would facilitate virtual enterprise formation. Now that
we have Web Services, this idea of finding services at runtime has great potential. Agent technology
can help to locate and apply Web Services in virtual enterprises, and also to dynamically construct and
operate them.
The most ambitious technologies however, intend to automate the process of formation and operation
of virtual enterprises, mainly through multi-agent technology approaches, where each partner enterprises
of the virtual enterprise can be represented by an agent. Research on multi-agent technology addresses
issues that fit the virtual enterprise scenario. Agents are autonomous, interact with other agents, and
enable approaching inherently distributed problems with negotiation and coordination capabilities
(Cardoso & Oliveira, 2005).
A lot of academic work has been done so far in applying software agents to virtual enterprises. Due to
this work many interesting results have been achieved concerning the virtual enterprise life cycle. However,
some of these results mean more confusion rather than clarification. Recent research, for example,
proposes abandoning specific implementations of software agents, in favor of building on emerging Web
service standards¡ªcalled service agents¡ªwhile others propose that we just use MAS technology.
¡°Agent and Web Service Technologies in Virtual Enterprises¡± addresses the different dimensions
of the above mentioned technologies when applied to virtual enterprises. The book intends to provide
an integrated view of the most recent contributions to the agent and Web service technologies in virtual
enterprises. Several dimensions can be identified in this mission:
The Web service dimension: This technology is very popular for virtual enterprise integration
and operation where the academic approach has not solved the fundamental problems of service
discovery as yet. How do interested parties find the capability they¡¯re looking for? How do they
advertise? How can software do this on behalf (but without the intervention) of a person? Many
proposals along these lines exist, ranging from content-based routing in the early 1990¡¯s to the use
of DAML-S for agents in recent years but none of them has led to deployed, practical systems so
far.
The software agent dimension: This includes multi-agent systems (MAS) technology, mobile
agents, intelligent agents and other combinations of traditional agent technologies.
The mission of the proposed book is to discuss the main issues, trends and opportunities related to
the application of agent and Web service technologies to virtual enterprises, from the above-mentioned
dimensions. The book will take a comprehensive approach, and disseminate practical solutions to promote
virtual enterprise and interorganizational integration. The overall objectives are:
To introduce and discuss the business integration requirements in the virtual enterprise and other
emerging interorganizational models
To discuss Web service and software agent technologies and applications
To discuss Web service and software agent technologies in virtual enterprise formation, integration
and operation
To introduce relevant and recent developments and solutions (academic and industrial) addressing
the several dimensions and issues of the book
This book is both for an academic audience (teachers, researchers and students, mainly of post-graduate
studies) and professional audience (managers, organizational and system developers and IT specialists)
in terms of explaining the requirements and frameworks for IT solutions.
This book is expected to act as a guide for technology solution developers from academia, research
institutions and industry, providing them with a broader perspective of Agent and Web Services.
This book contains 14 excellent chapters authored by a group of internationally renowned and experienced
professionals and researchers in the field of IT and virtual enterprise (VE) science. Contributors
also include younger authors, creating a value-added constellation of dynamic authors. Concerning the
environments from which the contributions are presented, the chapters came from academia, research
institutions and industry.
Organization of the Book
The 19 chapters in this book are organized into four sections. These sections address the state of the art
software agents and Web services areas along with the main phases of the virtual enterprise life cycle,
being in a simplified view formation, integration and operation.
The book¡¯s organization scheme, in respect to the previously mentioned three phases of the virtual
enterprise¡¯s life cycle and the technology addressed, is given in Table 1.
Section I, ¡°Agents and Web Services Overview,¡± consists of two chapters that give an overview
of the current advances in the software agent and Web service technologies.
Chapter I, ¡°Software Agent Technology: An Overview,¡± surveys some key research issues in the
software agents¡¯ area. It annotates several researchers¡¯ opinions on many areas concerning software
agents aiming to give a more documentary point of view on each argued subject. Its main goal is to
provide an overview of the rapidly evolving area of software agents, serving as a reference point
to a large body of literature and outlining the key aspects of software agent technology.
Chapter II, ¡°Web Services Technology: An Overview,¡± examines the concept of service-oriented
architecture (SOA) in conjunction with Web services technology, as an implementation of the
former¡¯s design principles. Following a brief introduction of SOA and its advantages, a high-level
overview of the structure and composition of the Web services platform is provided. This overview
covers the core Web services specifications as well as features of the extended architecture stack,
which together forms a powerful and robust foundation for building distributed systems.
Section II, ¡°Virtual Enterprise Formation,¡± consists of one chapter that discusses the application
of software agents and Web service technologies in the formation of virtual enterprises.
Chapter III, ¡°Virtual Enterprise Formation Supported by Agents and Web Services,¡± describes the
use of software agents and Web services to support the formation of virtual enterprises. The partners
of a virtual enterprise are represented as software agents. The AGORA multi-agent architecture
is used. The focus of this chapter is on the description of the services provided by each partner
and the partner selection process. The concept of agent interaction protocols is used to manage
the interactions during the formation of the virtual enterprise. An implementation of the ideas and
examples from industrial case studies are used for the validation of the approach and discussions.
The use of Semantic Web technology and Web services with multi-agent systems is discussed as
the future direction for this work.
Section III, ¡°Virtual Enterprise Integration,¡± consists of nine chapters that discuss the problems
of virtual enterprise integration. Agents and Web services are examined through various aspects of
the integration problem such as information and knowledge sharing, distributed project scheduling
and views and cross-enterprise culture sharing.
Chapter IV, ¡°Adaptive Service Choreography Support in Virtual Enterprises,¡± discusses Web service
choreography application in virtual enterprises. The contribution of the paper is two-fold: it explores
reusability of the applicable business protocols in different business scenarios and suggests ways
to adapt the implementations of the partners¡¯ services (end-points) to the changes in the business
protocols.
Chapter V, ¡°Technologies to Support the Market of Resources as an Infrastructure for Agile/Virtual
Enterprise Integration,¡± describes the functionalities of the market of resources and explains how it
supports A/V E integration. It also addresses some technologies that could support A/V E integration
based on the market of resources, namely XML/ebXML and Web services, in the integration
and automation of processes and services. The chapter proposes an architecture to support the
operation of the market of resources, representing a fusion of the peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture
with the client-server architecture, as a variant of P2P architecture.
Chapter VI, ¡°The Utilization of Semantic Web for Integrating Enterprise Systems¡± presents the
utilization of ontologies for the formation of an ONAR framework and its application for service
oriented application integration (SOAI). Ontologies based enterprise application integration (ONAR)
framework utilizes Semantic Web technologies to define shared information among heterogeneous
systems.
Chapter VII, ¡°A Recommender Agent to Support Knowledge Sharing in Virtual Enterprises,¡±
presents KARe, a multi-agent recommender system that supports users sharing knowledge in a
peer-to-peer environment. In this way, KARe reflects the intrinsically distributed nature of virtual
enterprises. Supporting social interaction, the system allows users to share knowledge through
questions and answers. This chapter focuses on KARe¡¯s recommendation algorithm, presenting
its description and evaluation
Chapter VIII, ¡°Framework of Agent-Based Intelligent System for Distributed Virtual Enterprise
Project Control,¡± the authors propose the multiagent systems with negotiation strategies for
project schedule control¡ªa collaborative system framework wherein a distributed project can be
scheduled dynamically by agents in the virtual enterprise environment. A prototype of the multiagent
systems, with the negotiation strategies, is implemented in Java, JADE, FIPA-ACL, and the
negotiation strategies are experimentally validated. The prototype successfully demonstrates the
online coordination and resolution in dynamic scheduling, while handling unexpected events to
meet each project participant¡¯s requirements.
Chapter IX, ¡°Sharing Views, Information, and Cross-Enterprise Culture in the Corporate Situation
Room,¡± presents a methodology for modeling corporate interactions using the concept of the situation
room (SR) as a supporting paradigm. Such an approach facilitates a way to model interactions
of a virtual enterprise nature, by means of an information and knowledge auction market that is
concerned with the communications and interactions within a virtual enterprise.
Chapter X, ¡°Multi-Agent Systems Integration in Enterprise Environments Using Web Services,¡±
presents a decoupled architectural approach that allows software agents to interoperate with enterprise
systems using Web services. The solution leverages existing technologies and standards
in order to reduce the time-to-market and increase the adoption of agent-based applications. The
chapter also presents case studies of applications that have been enhanced by this architecture.
Chapter XI, ¡°Web Service Discovery and Composition for Virtual Enterprises,¡± presents a methodology
and a software framework to support short-term collaborations between business partners
within a virtual enterprise, based on process-oriented design and communication by Web services.
Their framework developed in the frame of the Austrian project MOVE, supports the graphical
design and verification of business processes, the execution and supervision of processes in transaction-
oriented environment, and the dynamic composition and optimization of processes.
Chapter XII, ¡°Achieving Agile Enterprise Through Integrated Process Management: From Planning
to Work Execution,¡± describes an integrated process management system that will integrate
project management, business process modelling, simulation, and workflow technologies to support
scheduled workflow execution. The target will be achieved by utilizing a tool for modelling work
processes that can semi-automatically generate workflow processes based on a scheduling tool
and then export it to a workflow engine via Web services using XML process definition language
(XPDL). In addition, the simulation capability allows testing workflows before deployment.
Section IV, ¡°Virtual Enterprise Operation,¡± consists of six chapters that discuss virtual enterprise
operation. Agents and Web Services are examined through various aspects of the virtual enterprise
operation such as supply chain management, business process modelling and applications of virtual
enterprises in various sectors such as environmental and health care.
Chapter XIII, ¡°Agents and Multi-Agent Systems in Supply Chain Management: An Overview,¡±
discusses the current state-of-the-art agents and multi-agent systems (MAS) in supply chain management
(SCM). Following a general description of SCM and the challenges it is currently faced
with, we present MAS as a possible solution. The authors argue that an application involving
multiple autonomous actors, such as SCM, can best be served by a software paradigm that relies
on multiple independent software entities, like agents. The most significant current trends in this
area are discussed and potential areas for further research are outlined.
Chapter XIV, ¡°A Conceptual Framework for Business Process Modeling in Virtual Organizations,¡±
suggests a conceptual framework for modelling business processes in virtual Organizations, by
introducing Web services technology. Web services can be the business enabler for the new organizational
form, which is particularly well suited to meeting the demands arising from today¡¯s
turbulent changes in the firms¡¯ environment. The proposed framework consists of several steps in a
bottom-up approach, aiming to support the modelling and coordination of the complex and shared
business processes in the examined environments.
Chapter XV, ¡°Towards a Virtual Enterprise Architecture for the Environmental Sector,¡± explores
the potential of formulating virtual enterprises for the environmental sector. In particular, Section
II lays the foundations by introducing concepts related to environmental management information
systems (EMIS) and the major challenges for environmental information processing and dissemination.
In Section III, a virtual enterprise architecture for environmental information management is
introduced and Section IV specifies the operational fashion of such a virtual enterprise. Section V
summarizes latest developments in the field, and discusses the potential for wide-range adoption
of virtual enterprises in the environmental sector.
Chapter XVI, ¡°Using VO Concept for Managing Dynamic Security Associations,¡± discusses how
the virtual organization concept can be used for managing dynamic security associations in collaborative
applications and for complex resource provisioning as possible components of the Agent
based virtual enterprises. This chapter provides an overview of the current practice in virtual organization
management at the organizational level and its support at the security middleware level.
It identifies open issues and basic requirements of the virtual organization security functionality
and services and suggests possible directions for further research and development. The research
presented here is based on experience gained from the major grid-based and grid-oriented projects
in collaborative applications and complex resource provisioning.
Chapter XVII, ¡°Interoperability Middleware for Federated Business Services in Web-Pilarcos,¡±
presents the Web-Pilarcos architecture that addresses the needs of managed collaboration and interoperability
of autonomous business services in an inter-organisational context. The Web-Pilarcos
B2B middleware is designed for lowering the cost of collaboration establishment and to facilitate
management and maintenance of electronic business networks. The approach is a federated one: all
business services are developed independently and the B2B middleware services are used to ensure
that technical, semantic and pragmatic interoperability is maintained in the business network.
Chapter XVIII, ¡°Web-Based Template-Driven Communication Support Systems: Using Shadow
netWorkspace to Support Trust Development in Virtual Teams,¡± describes the development and
some initial experiences with a Web-based, template driven, asynchronous communication support
tool and how this system can be used to support trust development in virtual teams and performance
goals of virtual teams. This chapter presents the capabilities and features of the communication
support system.
Chapter IXX, ¡°Web Service Design Concepts and Structures for Support of Highly Interconnected
E-Health Infrastructures: A Bottom-Up Approach,¡± the authors present organizational issues that are
revealed when considering the case of interconnecting and integrating different compartments of a
modern hospital. They present a technology-based approach for solving interoperability problems
at the service level, and they deliberately adopt a problem-solving approach that is successfully
adopted in the European IST Project ARTEMIS.
Expectations
This book is expected to be read by academics (i.e., teachers, researchers and students), technology solutions
developers and enterprise managers (including top level managers). It is expected to be a guide
for technology solution developers, from academia, research institutions and industry, providing them
with a broader perspective of virtual enterprise technologies. It aims to increase their awareness on how
agent and Web stechnologies can best serve the needs of an ever expanding and increasingly competitive
organizational model. This book also widens horizons for researchers interested in this emerging field
and presents the background and state-of-the-art developments.
As a book it is expected to raise the awareness of the potential of the virtual enterprises model so that
managers, who should employ proactive behavior towards new approaches to business, are able to exploit
it. In other words, the book provides guidance and helps raise awareness, pro-activeness and agility of
enterprise managers. This should include top level and IT managers, for strategic and dynamic alignment
with business opportunities, on the problems of virtual enterprise development, implementations and
operation as well as on the evolution of their actual enterprises towards virtual enterprise.
This work will support teachers of several graduate and postgraduate courses, from an information
technology perspective. In particular, it will support the emerging courses on virtual enterprise technologies
and provide a basis for understanding content, and an area for further study, research and solutions
development.
The editor is also expecting that the book will contribute to the diffusion of the virtual enterprises
technological concept in other parts of the world, not only in the most developed countries.
Finally, the editor is grateful to the readers for any constructive criticism and indication of errors¡ª
conceptual, omissions or in typing.
The Editor,
Nicolaos Protogeros
References
Wikipedia. Virtual Enterprise definition. Retrieved January 31, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Virtual_enterprise
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (2004). Identity Management: Technology Cornerstone of the Virtual Enterprise.
Retrieved January 31, 2007, from http://www.sun.com/software/products/identity/wp_virtual_enterprise.
pdf
Cardoso, H. L., & Oliveira, E. (2005). Virtual Enterprise Normative Framework within Electronic Institutions.
Retrieved January 31, 2007, from http://paginas.fe.up.pt/~eol/PUBLICATIONS/2005/esaw_post.
PDF
Reviews and Testimonials
"Protogeros has compiled an astounding reference source, a thorough and complete treatise of Web technologies and their increasingly important role in the world's economy. Highly recommended."
– CHOICE, Vol. 45, No. 06 (2008)
This book contains 14 excellent chapters authored by a group of internationally renowned and experienced professionals and researchers in the field of IT and virtual enterprise (VE) science.
– Nicolaos Protogeros, University of Macedonia, Greece
"The nineteen chapters presented by Protogeros constitute a survey of recent advances in software agent and Web service technologies, treating them both as enabling technologies for virtual enterprises as well as paradigms relevant to the organizational and social aspects of such enterprises."
– Book News (November 2007)
This book includes a detailed table of contents with abstracts, supplying a needed access point to the content. Also, all chapter references are compiled at the end of the book, providing users with a helpful bibliography in this subject area.
– American Reference Books Annual, Vol. 39
I found it quite comprehensive and innovative in both scientific analysis and contribution as well as in writing style. All authors explain their ideas and propositions in a proper academic format, leading the reader to follow complex technical matters in an understandable way.
– D. John Mylonakis, Hellenic Open Univeristy, Greece
Author's/Editor's Biography
Nicolaos Protogeros (Ed.)
Nicolaos Protogeros is a lecturer of information systems and e-commerce at the Macedonia University of Thessaloniki (Greece). He received a PhD in information systems from the National Polytechnic Institute (France), an MSc in remote sensing from the University Paul Sabatier (France), and a bachelor degree in mathematics from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece). Dr. Protogeros has 15 years of working experience in the private sector specializing in information technology and electronic commerce applications and over 10 years of teaching experience. He has been the project leader for many research and development projects in the area of Web-based technologies, software agents, and virtual organizations. Dr. Protogeros has published papers in academic journals and he has participated in many international conferences. His current research and teaching activities are concerned with the implementation and application of e-commerce systems to support inter-organizational collaboration and virtual enterprises.
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