Title: An evolving plug-and-play business infrastructure for networked organisations

Authors: Ricardo J. Rabelo, Sergio Gusmeroli, Thierry Nagellen, Cristina Arana

Addresses: Department of Automation and Systems, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianopolis (SC), Brazil. ' TXT e-Solutions, Milan, Italy. ' France Telecom R&D, Sophia-Antipolis, France. ' Software AG Espana SA, Madrid, Spain

Abstract: This paper introduces a distributed and open ICT infrastructure that has been developed in a research project to help members of Collaborative Networks in doing businesses and collaborations together more efficiently. ICT-I design relies on the service oriented architecture paradigm and its services are to be used under the on demand and pay-per-use models. It is flexible to support an easy entrance of new services, offering supporting services for Virtual Breeding Environments, Virtual Organisations and Professional Virtual Communities. This paper details the ICT-I requirements, its architecture and services, and implementation issues. Conclusions and challenges are presented in the end.

Keywords: CNOs; collaborative networks; ICT infrastructure; SOA; service-oriented architecture; on-demand; web services; reference architecture; interoperability; B2B; business-to-business; ICT standards; collaboration; distributed ICT; open ICT; virtual breeding environments; virtual organisations; professional virtual communities; information management; information technology.

DOI: 10.1504/IJITM.2009.024605

International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 2009 Vol.8 No.3, pp.260 - 282

Published online: 10 Apr 2009 *

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