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We consider the case of trading in an environment of autonomous components. Trading is the process of matching a service request with the offers to support that particular service made by potential servers. In the case of multiple matching offers a selection of the most suitable server can be made according to the properties of the server. Among the possible selection policies we concentrate on those taking into account the actual load of the server. The selection process can be delegated to components of a special type, called traders. Various aspects influence the performance of the server selection process, including the delay of the load information, the selection strategy, the use or non-use of traders, and the number of concurrent traders, if any. We investigate several trading strategies in a scenario where the load information is broadcast periodically, and where multiple traders may operate concurrently.

This paper presents the approach and some results of the COCONET Roadmap project (1ST-2001–37460). This project has as its objective to prepare a strategy and roadmap for RTD of high industrial impact in the area of context-aware collaborative environments for next generation business networks. The roadmap approach as presented here is based on scenarios for future work and business environments. Major challenges in future RTD are described and the approach is evaluated.

The main scope of this paper is to present a set of enabling services that support the establishment and management of Virtual Enterprises and the integration and interoperation of business processes. Based on a virtual enterprise life-cycle model that we propose, different business domains can integrate their business processes in order to provide transparently services to the end-users and customers of the Virtual Enterprise (VE). The appropriate enabling services are identified, analyzed and certain details regarding their design is given. These enabling services are the VE contract manager, the BP administrator, and the BP controller. Underlying services needed for the integration and execution of shared business processes are also proposed. Our proposed enabling services reduce the cost of development, maintenance and integration of shared business processes in VEs by applying interoperable, distributed object oriented technologies.

Die Globalisierung elektronischer Markte fordert von Unternehmen, dass sie sich fortlaufend der weltweiten Herausforderung stellen. Die Notwendigkeit der Reduzierung des Aufwands fur Entwicklung, Produktion, Markteinfuhrung und Betrieb, die Forderung nach verbesserter Dienstleistung und Anpassung an Kundenwunsche und Marktbewegungen sowie das Bestreben nach globaler Prasenz und Wirkung hat in den letzten Jahren bereits zum Einsatz elektronischer Informations- und Kommunikationssysteme zur Unterstutzung von Automatisierung, Verteilung der Zustandigkeiten und intensivierter Zusammenarbeit innerhalb und zwischen Unternehmen gefuhrt (Applegate 96, Malone 91, Ouzounis 98a). Das Ergebnis ist eine weitgehend heterogene Welt elektronischer Informations- und Kommunikationsplattformen und eine Vielzahl darauf zugeschnittener Anwendungen.

We describe the need for the collaboration of managers in cooperative applications where the federative application context must be harmonized with the hierarchical component environment. A cooperative management concept is introduced which augments existing hierarchical management policies and procedures. The concept includes proposals for federations, 'manager' domains and collaboration procedures. It relates a group of managers to a group of managed objects, and proposes rules for collaboration between the managers before executing operations on the objects. Some possible application areas, including inter-domain information management, customer network management, the management of virtual private networks (VPN) and trading in open distributed processing (ODP), are discussed. A related approach is described for comparison. Remarks on the importance of adequate access control mechanisms and on the need for the dynamic creation and modification of manager groups are added.