Enabling Technologies for EC Requirements, Standards, Problems A Min Tjoa

1. Enabling Technologies for EC Requirements, Standards, Problems A Min Tjoa Vienna University of Technology tjoa@ifs.tuwien.ac.at http://www.ifs.tuwien.ac.at/ifs Gerti Kappel Johannes Kepler University of Linzgerti@ifs.uni-linz.ac.at http://www.ifs.uni-linz.ac.at XV. IFIP World Computer Congress Vienna/Budapest, 31.8-4.9. 1998

2. Outline • Introduction • Enabling Technologies for EC • Workflow Management Systems • Database Systems and Open Hypermedia Systems • Data Mining and OLAP • EDI • Conclusion

3. Introduction (1/3)Electronic Commerce • EC comprises all selling and buying activities on the Internet • commercial transactions between businesses • retail sale of tangible goods • digital delivery of goods and services, etc. • Businesses invirtually every sector of economy are beginning to use the Internet to • manage supplier relationships • streamline logistics and inventory • reach new and existing customers, etc. • According to a study of the International Data Corporation • $ 8 billion worth of business was transacted in 1997 • that figure will grow to $ 333 billion by 2002

4. Introduction (2/3)Requirements on EC Enabling Technologies • A major challenge is to identify appropriate enablingtechnologies for EC and to integrate them into a common application framework • in this respect, the existence of standards constitutes an important selection criteria • Numerous requirements origin from the unique nature of EC • distributed, autonomous and heterogenous information sources • vast amounts of hypermedia data • a wide range of user‘s specialties and abilities • various services which should be supported e.g., suppliers search and negotiation, establishment of initial contracts, sales, pre- and post-sales support and secure electronic payment

5. Introduction (3/3)Exemplary EC Enabling Technologies Concerning ... • Business process aspect of EC • Workflow Management Systems (WFMS) could serve as the backbone of EC business processes • Pre-sales phase of EC • Database Systems (DBS) and Open Hypermedia Systems (OHS) could be employed for realizing electronic catalogues • Post-sales phase of EC • Data Mining and OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) Technology could be used to establish web usage tracking

6. Outline • Introduction • Enabling Technologies for EC • Workflow Management Systems • Database Systems and Open Hypermedia Systems • Data Mining and OLAP • EDI • Conclusion

7. WFMS for EC Processes (1/3) • WFMS support the design, execution and monitoring of long-lasting business processes that typically involve • multiple activities, • multiple collaborating persons, • in a distributed environment • With respect to EC, WFMS can be seen as the glue between previously independently modelled business processes of different organizations, thereby realizing inter-organizational workflows • All phases of an EC business process ranging from pre-sales via sales to post-sales activities could be supported by WFMS

8. WFMS for EC Processes (2/3)Adaptability Requirement • EC processes, especially their pre-sales and post-sales phases, are to a certain extent unstructured and unpredictable • therefore, deviations from a predefined workflow type capturing a sequence of tasks should be allowed at runtime • meanwhile, consistency and correctness of the whole business process has to be preserved • EC processes have to adapt to rapid changes in the business environment • therefore, there is a need to dynamically reengineer and optimize the workflow type itself while possibly several workflow instances of that type are active

9. WFMS for EC Processes (3/3)Interoperability Requirement • EC workflows involve multiple, possibly heterogeneous and autonomous parties • thus, interoperability between WFMS is of major concern • Different levels of interoperability should be supported • tight coupling with strict synchronization needs • loose coupling for the electronic exchange of business documents on the basis of protocols such as EDI or OTP • Two standardization groups deal with these problems • the Workflow Management Coalition (WfMC) • the Object Management Group (OMG) aims at integrating a workflow management facility into CORBA

10. DBS and OHS for Electronic Catalogues (1/2)Electronic Product Data Management • Clients of EC systems should quickly and easily obtain all the product data needed to make informed purchase decisions • Many existing electronic product data is stored together with HTML commands in files • this leads to problems concerning maintenance, consistency, concurrency and authorization • DBS could be employed to support the consistent multi-user management of distributed hypermedia information • product data can be highly structured by means of the DB schema • retrieval can be done by precise Boolean queries possibly based on the SQL standard • many DBS support multimedia datatypes

11. DBS and OHS for Electronic Catalogues (2/2)Interoperability of OHS • Content providers and consumers should be enabled to easily locate and acquire whatever product data they desire from other catalogues • By means of the link server functionality of OHS, every link can perform arbitrary behavior on remote catalogues such as • querying • controlling access • presenting the remote product data in context of the original local catalogue • On the basis of standard protocols, similar or complementary products can be easier located in other catalogues • cf., e.g., the XML and RDF initiatives of the W3C consortium

12. Data Mining and OLAP for Web Usage Tracking • The analysis of how users are accessing a Web site is critical for • determining effective marketing strategies • generating user profiles for personalizing a site • optimizing the logical structure of a site • User access patterns can be discovered out of Web transactions by means of data mining techniques such as • path analysis • association rules • classification rules • The analysis of access patterns may be served by OLAP techniques

13. Interfaces in EC - EDI • Human - Human e.g. e-mail • Human - Machine e.g. electronic forms (WWW) • Machine - Human e.g. computer-generated e-mail • Machine - Machine only EDI

14. Definition of EDI electronic exchangeof structured data between Enterprise 1 Enterrpise 2 Application 1 Applicaation 2 Independent from Hardware Software Communication Networks

15. Definition of EDI … is the exchange of electronic business data between applications via a network based on a format which is understood by both (all) business partners

16. EDI Standard • Syntactic rules defining the allowed symbols and the sequence in which they may be used • Vocabulary of allowed words, Definition • Message design that structures the information in a defined sequence

17. EDI Standards SWIFT ODETTE sector dependent EDIFACT ANSI X.12 sector independent national international

18. Modem Modem Communikations- connection Converter- Software Converter- Software Computer Mapping & Application Computer Mapping & Application Supplier Customer EDI Components

19. Programs Tables Profile ‘In-house’Application Interface File Communications Interface Transmission File RECEIVER Programs Tables Profile ‘In-house’Application Communications Interface Transmission File Interface File EDI Process SENDER ExportedFiles Communications Protocol Converter Database EDI Format

20. Advantages of EDI • More efficient use of personnel • Faster transactions - shorter transaction time • Recent, quickly accesible information across the whole enterprise • Better planning • Just-in-Time (JIT) Production • Smaller amount of merchandise in the warehouses • Smaller amount of interest

21. Summary • EC can largely benefit from already existing enabling technologies • A major challenge in successfully designing EC applications is to identify and combine these technologies • Thereby, standardization efforts play a major role

22. „The nice thing about standards ...“ • ... there are so many of them to choose from • ... by the time things become standards, they‘re obsolete • ... real standards are set by the market, not committees Standards - the only way that everyone can play tragedy of the common „where do you want to go today?“ [Larry Masinter, Tutorial at the 7th WWW Conference, April 1998]

23. Standards follow Innovation Standardization, Convergence Innovation, Divergence [Larry Masinter, Tutorial at the 7th WWW Conference, April 1998]

24. Standards vs. Design • Design • choose between alternatives (A, B, or C) • optimize function, performance, reliability • Standard • choose one, some, all, „undefined“, „implementation dependent“, „discoverable“ • optimize flexibility, interoperability, politics, extensibility, enforced operation [Larry Masinter, Tutorial at the 7th WWW Conference, April 1998]

25. Who writes (Web/EC) standards? • Standard organizations • Consortia • Companies • Individuals • IETF • W3C • ISO • IEEE • ANSI [Larry Masinter, Tutorial at the 7th WWW Conference, April 1998]