E-Business Collaborations

The development of web services technology and its use for integrating widely spread legacy applications for a multi-location company was not sufficient. Something more was needed: the integration (composition) of web services deployed by different companies. A typical business transaction requires the use of diverse web services. Let us take an example of a travel booking. When you use a website for booking your flights, you are using the service provided by the website and also the service provided by the airline. You may even request the lowest quote from different airlines during this transaction. So, you will be using the services offered by several companies in a single business transaction. This kind of composition of web services introduces many more considerations. The participating web services (partners) must collaborate with other participants and a coordinator to perform the desired business operation. The operation may be to achieve a simple buyer...