Architectural Overview of Managed Electronic Commerce
Framework 1: Optimized eCommerce Processes Framework 2: Managed eCommerce Process Components The economic benefits derived from ICI's managed electronic commerce solutions stem from the transition from a tried-and-true paradigm of use and interaction to a revolutionary one that transcends previous thinking. It means taking a different direction across the well-traveled internetscape to one that offers many paths for optimum transversal for e-commerce transactions.
For users, the new paradigm of managed electronic commerce means faster fulfillment and increased assurance that the transaction processes are more reliable, visible, well defined, have a known state, are understandable, trusted, and believable.
Individual service providers achieve higher volumes and guaranteed transactions when they become the optimal providers for the given transaction. Financial institutions garner greater efficiencies and higher transactional throughput.
ICI's eCommerce environment provides an unrestricted retail presence to virtual storeowners, where company size no longer matters, nor is it readily apparent. Moreover, our approach projects the same component-based, reusable software technology gains into the electronic-enabled marketplace, thereby transcending the commonly held "packetized" view currently in vogue today. Such a strategy leads to dynamically negotiated business deals, which could also be described as virtually instantaneous nodal network optimization, where the nodes represent each of the e-commerce players.
The Foundation Underlying the Architecture As mentioned previously, the system supports management of electronic commerce in two dimensions. First, enterprise management tools monitor and manage the tools. Second, the electronic commerce processes are themselves managed, with the goal of achieving optimal execution of electronic commerce tasks.
Clusters The platform-independent system components operate in a highly distributed environment connected via local- and wide-area networks. Clusters exchange information to perform tasks, carry out those tasks autonomously and in parallel, and then exchange results that can serve as input for other tasks. The system replicates the basic building block, the cluster, to support many concurrent requests. A small collection of clusters, typically interconnected using a high-speed network, is called a Community. The collection of all clusters is called the Society. To be a member of the Society means that a cluster correctly implements the interfaces defined by the architecture, both the syntactic syntax and dynamic behavior. Clusters can be configured independently to accomplish diverse tasks by integrating custom support for those specialized tasks. The architecture provides for customization by encouraging dynamic loading of "plug-ins," where a plug-in is a service smaller than a cluster that extends the cluster capabilities.
An important system design requirement is to produce a common system for all facets of electronic commerce operations: planning, execution, training, and operations, from fixed or mobile locations. The system operates in the same way, and presents the same interfaces to users in all of these environments.
Elements of the system continuously plan, execute, and monitor events. As soon as one processing cycle ends, the next cycle begins. Each cycle uses the most up-to-date real-world information as well as the results from the previous cycle within MEC. As each cycle completes, the results of that cycle are assessed, events are propagated to parts of the MEC system that control and modify tasks, and are further propagated to users, as appropriate.
The MEC system monitors appropriate databases, typically using events or triggers for changes in the real world, such as a change in inventory status as a result of a transaction that occurred outside the MEC system, or a shipment delay being reflected in the shipper's database. As a result of this continuous monitoring of change, each processing cycle within the MEC system will work from the most current information.
The MEC system is highly distributed. Each cluster contains a set of basic component software and a specialized set for the tasks that the cluster performs. Different clusters and even different components of the same cluster can reside on different machines that communicate over local- and wide- area networks.
Architectural Components User proxies are clusters that represent the individual or business user specified in the particular electronic commerce process. These clusters represent the source of anticipated and actual requests for goods and services, either for individuals or for business units. Figure 3 depicts three independent, orthogonal dimensions of the managed electronic commerce system: workflow dimension, MEC cluster dimension, and persistence dimension.
Workflow Dimension: A workflow is a set of related tasks and capabilities leading to the achievement of a goal. An MEC template workflow contains subtasks, their dependencies, start time relative to the parent's, expected duration of the individual workflow steps, and a description of the resources necessary to execute the workflow. As the workflow execution occurs, the Workflow Manager monitors the workflow progress to understand when a workflow step should complete and how to manage events flagged during workflow operations.
MEC Cluster Dimension: A cluster develops and monitors the eCommerce plan, and
Persistence Dimension: Manages data that survives the execution of any one computer program. The Expander, Allocator, and Assessor services read and write long-lived data via the Data Services interface. Within an MEC cluster, Expanders expand the specified tasks into implied tasks (if necessary) that Allocators can fulfill. Tasks can be allocated to other MEC clusters that actually allocate resources to fulfill the specified task.
Cluster Content Expander Service Allocator Services Workflow Manager The job of the Workflow Manager is to (1) monitor the current and future development and execution of an eCommerce plan, and to (2) perform specified actions whenever a plan element ventures outside of prescribed boundary conditions.
Data Management Managed eCommerce Management Components
SNMP entities consist of applications that either serve as command generators or notification receivers. Some applications can contain both elements. Managed information typically is represented as a value to variable mapping for physical devices in the network, where the structure of that information is described in a management information base (MIB).
The SNMP and MIB specifications are ideal for specifying interoperable management protocols for a family of important electronic commerce activities.
By leveraging our experience and expertise in the development of SNMP agents, we will implement the appropriate agent policy for the managed eCommerce component suite. This agent policy will include the following:
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