Web Services and B2B Collaboration

Abstract

Web service technology is moving into the mainstream. HTTP-based integration is proving more useful than prior approaches for integrating heterogeneous and distributed systems. Web service architectures are quickly advancing beyond and becoming more complex than their initial XML (extensible markup language)/SOAP (simple object access protocol)/UDDI (universal description, discovery, and integration) architectures. With added specifications, Web services are creating a service-oriented computing paradigm with their attendant terms and concepts, such as Web service networks, Web service management platforms, and service-oriented architectures (SOA), among others. Aided by Web services, business-to-business (B2B) integration topologies are growing in diversity to support various options for B2B collaboration. Web services are now the primary technical direction enabling this diversification of B2B collaborations (e-collaboration) among value chain partners and customers. They form the foundation for the development of a new generation of B2B applications and the architecture for integrating enterprise applications (Kreger, 2003). Web services promise to increase these partnering companies’ flexibility, agility, competitiveness, as well as opportunities to reduce development cost and time.