Event-Based Interaction Management for Composite E-Services in eFlow

The Web is rapidly becoming the platform through which many companies deliver e-services to businesses and individual customers. E-Services are typically delivered in their primitive forms, called basic services. However, today's business environment creates the opportunity for providing value-added, integrated services, delivered by composing existing e-services, possibly offered by different providers.In order to enable organizations to pursue this business opportunity we have developed eFlow, a model and architecture that support the specification, enactment, and management of composite e-services, modeled as processes that are enacted by a process engine. In this paper we focus on one of the most important and innovative aspects of eFlow: that of the integration between service composition and event management. In particular, we extend classic service composition model by allowing composite services to publish and receive events. This capability enables composite services to dynamically exchange data with other applications (in the form of event parameters), to synchronize service invocations with the occurrence of (external or internal) events, and to handle exceptions occurring during service execution. One of our main objectives has been that of defining a model that is easy to understand and easy to use. Indeed, all types of events are handled in the same fashion from the user perspective, and high-level constructs are provided to handle critical events such as those related to time management. Finally, we show how the proposed approach can be implemented by integrating existing technologies.     

Determinants of success for application service provider: An empirical test in small businesses

Recently, application service provider (ASP), a new rental-based enterprise software business, has become a viable option. Although ASP has the potential to fundamentally change the manner in which IT services are provided for user firms, current ASPs often fail to show robust records in accumulating and maintaining customers. Therefore, this paper attempts to explore the main success factors for ASP-based information systems on the basis of past IS success models. Two hundred and three samples were collected from small and medium enterprises with ASP service experiences. Data analysis using LISREL shows that seven IS success factors—system quality, information quality, service quality, intention to use, user satisfaction, individual benefit, organizational benefit and an additional factor, trust, have good fit with data gathered. These factors, except for system quality, show significant coefficients and explanatory power. Furthermore, it is found that both service quality and information quality are significant for fostering user satisfaction, trust, and intention to use.     

An intelligent web service group-based recommendation system for long-term composition

A modern model long-term composed service (LCS) with a group recommendation system has an indefinite lifespan. An LCS is used as a long-term business goal, and for a business committed to its customers, support will be provided to customers enabling them to book, e.g. an automotive service through online web services by providing information that the LCS then uses to offer more support. However, identifying the exact service to meet the user requirement is essential. Service composition has been identified as the key task in achieving various QoS performances. There exist various approaches that involve service composition according to the throughput and popularity. However, they fail to achieve the expected performance. Towards improving the performance of the LCS, a novel LCS that is based on the user queries of a group of persons is developed to give the best business services based on previous travel details and services. The method carries out service selection and composition according to the ratings provided by users towards any service. Additionally, the method considers the user-to-service rating and service-to-service rating, which are measured according to the coupling quality. Therefore, the proposed novel LCS provides better services based on the user ratings for particular business queries. The method ranks the services according to the rating values to perform service composition, with consideration of the detection of similar user groups and utilization of the rating values in service selection. We aim to propose a novel LCS work based on group ratings and a group of services. This work is intended to reduce the time complexity of changes in the LCS network using the group recommendation system.

     

Process-Based E-Service Composition for Modeling and Automating Zero Latency Supply Chains

E-services are teams of applications and humans (participating electronically) that work together to provide a service or a product. Virtual Enterprises (VEs) are business or organizations that provide products or services that are created and managed by combining and wrapping e-services provided by multiple independent enterprises. To operate efficiently VEs must form supply chains that utilize and manage e-services. In this paper, we propose a Service Oriented Process model (SOP) and describe the architecture and the basic design principles of the Collaboration Management Infrastructure (CMI), a system that supports SOP. SOP permits modeling of e-services and provides for e-service integration to construct efficient multi-enterprise supply chains. This is accomplished by modeling composite e-services as Multi-Enterprise Processes (MEPs). In particular, SOP supports service activities for modeling the services themselves, primitives for composing supply chains from services, and primitives for automating service coordination as required by a supply chain. The CMI system implements SOP and uses a semantic broker that has knowledge about the service capabilities an quality. Therefore, a MEP (and hence its supply chain) is capable of on-the-fly choice of the service providers that are best suited to its objectives (e.g., cheapest or fastest).     

Using Semantics for Policy-Based Web Service Composition

Proliferation of Web technologies and the ubiquitous Internet has resulted in a tremendous increase in the need to deliver one-stop Web services, which are often composed of multiple component services that cross organizational boundaries. It is essential that these Web services, referred to in this paper as service flows, be carefully composed in a dynamic and customized manner to suit to the changing needs of the customers. This composition should be conducted in such a manner that (i) the composed service flow adheres to the policies imposed by the organizations offering the component services, (ii) the selected component services are compatible with one another so that the entire composition would result in a successful service flow, and (iii) the selected component services most closely meet the customer requirements. In this paper, we propose a policy-based Web service composition that utilizes the semantics associated with the component services.We consider policies imposed by different entities while composing service flows, which include service policies (imposed by the organizations offering component services), service flow policies (associated with the entire service flow), and user policies (the user requirements expressed as policies). In addition to these policies, one may consider rules at the syntactic and semantic levels that can be used to select relevant component services in order to compose customized service flows, by considering the notions of syntactic, semantic and policy compatibility. We model the different policies and the service topic ontology using OWL, DAML-S, RuleML and RDF standards.Recommended by: Athman Bouguettaya and Boualem BenatallahThe work is supported by and a grant from the Meadowlands Environmental Research Institute, New Jersey Meadowlands Commission.     

A Galois lattice approach to a context-aware privacy negotiation service

Online privacy has consistently been a major concern for customers that has grown commensurately with the growth of e-services. Service providers have responded by making their privacy policies clearer for customers; however, most providers use legacy systems that are unable to actually change and adapt to user’s concerns, which can lead to fewer customers using the system. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to propose a context-aware privacy policy negotiation service. To do so, we adopt a Galois lattice theory to generate policy concepts embedded in e-services. Based on the Galois lattice, we develop a process for generating privacy policy rules. To show the feasibility of the ideas proposed in this paper, we perform a simulation test with two different online auction sites as an illustrative case in terms of two metrics: the number of rules generated and success throughput. Desirable features in applying the Galois lattice approach to context-aware privacy policy negotiation service are discussed.     

浅谈宽带客户双路由接入模式的保障与实现

伴随着整体电信网络的发展,中国企业信息化进程加速,企业网大客户接入市场规模不断扩大,呈现出网络向全光化发展;产品向定制化、个性化、智能化及综合化发展;服务向精细化发展等趋势,由于企业用户需求复杂,通常宽、窄带业务,话音、数据业务需求并存,网络配置灵活性要求高,定制需求强,相应的适应企业客户需求的综合接入设备与一般公众接入网络有很多区别,形成了一个以客户需求为导向的高端市场如企业、政府和金融单位。本文浅析了运营商为宽带客户进行双路由接入的几种模式,并进行了比较,作为接入方案制定的参考。     

Choosing the Right Security Infrastructure for E-Business Success

Abstract

E-business is not just hype — it is truly changing the way many companies do business. It can deliver real benefits to companies that introduce online services, as well as to the customers and business partners of those companies.     

New approach based on proximity/remoteness measurement for customer classification

Electronic Commerce Research - Customer recognition provides an opportunity to the customers to think about services in service companies. Classifying customers into different categories based on...     

Model-based services convergence and multi-clouds integration

With the development of cloud computing, IT users (individuals, enterprises and even public services providers) are transferring their jobs or businesses to public online services provided by professional information service companies. These information service companies provide applications as public resources to support the business operation of their customers. However, no cloud computing service vendor (CCSV) can satisfy the full functional information system requirements of its customers. As a result, its customers often have to simultaneously use services distributed in different clouds and do some connectivity jobs manually. Services convergence and multi-clouds integration will lead to new business models and trigger new integration technologies that provide solutions to satisfy IT users’ complicated requirements. This paper firstly reviews the development of cloud computing from business and technical viewpoints and then discusses requirements and challenges of services convergence and multi-clouds integrations. Thirdly, a model based architecture of multi-clouds integration is provided. Business logic modelling for cross-organizational collaboration, service modelling and operation modelling methods with relative model mapping technology are discussed in detail. Some key enabling technologies are also developed. At last, case studies are presented to illustrate the implementation of the technologies developed in the paper.     

A study of factors that affect user intentions toward email service switching

Internet portals have long been using email services to attract new members and retain existing customers. Recent announcements by major Internet portals of increases in email storage capacity demonstrate this strategy. It is, however, uncertain how people react to such announcements. We wished to understand the mechanisms associated with users’ intention to switch their current email service provider. Key variables pertaining to customer satisfaction with email service, attractive alternatives, and switching cost were examined to explain the dynamics of switching. An empirical study based on 1408 survey responses confirmed the importance of user satisfaction for service continuation. The variables attractive alternatives and continuity cost also demonstrated strong association with intention to switch. We found that the variable attractive alternatives moderated the relationship between customer satisfaction and intention to switch, but a moderating effect of switching cost was not found. Our investigation indicated that the findings of extant studies on the dynamics of service switching or re-purchase also apply to email services.     

A security policy framework for context-aware and user preferences in e-services

In today’s dynamic and distributed markets a large spectrum of services is delivered through information and communication technologies. Emerging markets of e-services lie at the intersection of non-traditional user behaviour, and cyber-partnerships of enterprises to deliver innovative services. Current approaches to manage and control security demonstrate lacks in terms of security policy matching and integration in heterogeneous e-service environments. In this paper, we introduce a framework to support role-based access control for distributed services focusing on the integration of customer preferences. The framework aims to collect and generate policy-based security measures in cross-organisational scenarios. In addition to catering to specifications of security and business policies, the ability to integrate contextual information and user preferences make the role-based framework flexible and express a variety of access policies that provide a just-in-time permission activation.     

Development of a Hybrid Manufacturing Cloud

Cloud manufacturing is emerging as a novel business paradigm for the manufacturing industry, in which dynamically scalable and virtualised resources are provided as consumable services over the Internet. A handful of cloud manufacturing systems are proposed for different business scenarios, most of which fall into one of three deployment modes, i.e. private cloud, community cloud, and public cloud. One of the challenges in the existing solutions is that few of them are capable of adapting to changes in the business environment. In fact, different companies may have different cloud requirements in different business situations; even a company at different business stages may need different cloud modes. Nevertheless, there is limited support on migrating to different cloud modes in existing solutions. This paper proposes a Hybrid Manufacturing Cloud that allows companies to deploy different cloud modes for their periodic business goals. Three typical cloud modes, i.e. private cloud, community cloud and public cloud are supported in the system. Furthermore, it enables companies to set self-defined access rules for each resource so that unauthorised companies will not have access to the resource. This self-managed mechanism gives companies full control of their businesses and boosts their trust with enhanced privacy protection. A unified ontology is developed to enhance semantic interoperability throughout the whole process of service provision in the clouds. A Cloud Management Engine is developed to manage all the user-defined clouds, in which Semantic Web technologies are used as the main toolkit. The feasibility of this approach is verified through a group of companies, each of which has complex access requirements for their resources. In addition, a use case is carried out between customers and service providers. This way, optimal service is delivered through the proposed system.     

A framework for balanced service and cross-selling by using queuing science

Contact centers are complex call centers to handle large volume of inbound, outbound or both types of calls depending on the business purpose. Call centers assume the role of the primary contact medium for many companies from a wide range of industries with their customers or clients. Despite of being seen traditionally as adding cost to the companies’ bottom lines, call centers are now viewed by many companies to turn a service request into an opportunity to sell additional products and services. This sales attempt is called cross-selling. The opportunity to generate profit from an existing customer-base is a key factor for a successful call center. This paper introduces a framework for balancing cross-selling and service activities in a call center setting from a queuing science point of view. The main goal of this study is to introduce a framework to maximize a call center’s performance without degrading the service quality. Our framework is based on the usage of real-time queue characteristics, customer profile information and server-skill set information from a cross-sell point of view.     

Function and service pattern analysis for facilitating the reconfiguration of collaboration systems

Recently, manufacturing companies have been attempting to increase competitiveness in their business collaboration with cooperative companies rather than within their own companies. In order to facilitate their collaboration, they are attempting to adopt or already using a collaboration system, which supports a number of functions and services. However, it is very difficult to apply existing systems into other organizations or industrial sections without customization or reconfiguration because functional or service requirements of users usually differ according to their domain knowledge. In order to re-apply and disseminate an existing system to other companies, therefore, the system must be reconfigured by modifying, upgrading, or newly developing some portions of the system. During the customization processes, functions or services of the system must be refined in order to satisfy user requirements. For facilitating the reconfiguration of collaboration systems, in this paper, we first define user patterns, and subsequently propose a method for investigating and analyzing patterns based on data mining approach. The proposed method validates normal versus abnormal patterns that show a drastic increase in the use of a specific function or service, and automatically makes the system recognize abnormal patterns as new normal patterns when abnormal patterns continue for a long time. We conduct experiments and comparison studies using an Apriori-like approach in order to establish the effectiveness of the proposed method. We also suggest a guideline for the reconfiguration of function modules or services with a specific collaboration system.     

A custom collaboration service system for idea management of mobile phone design

Customized collaborative service (CCS) systems are defined as the e‐services transforming a business process into a collaborative service model and aiming to facilitate interactions with customers and assist the providers in dealing with collaborative strategies and activities. The demand for such services has grown rapidly in a shift of people out of the manufacturing mindset into the service‐dominant mindset. For example, the mobile‐phone market now tends to customization rather than commoditization, and customer‐driven design strategies increasingly substitute for technology‐driven design strategies. This trend accordingly urges the mobile‐phone companies to center on a customer‐centric idea management process to assure customer idea originality but also sustain the process feasibility for realistic product design. However, a method to engineer such CCS systems has not been addressed. This article presents a prototype system named iMobileDesign to exemplify a CCS system. We present a new methodology to engineer this CCS system aiming to achieve semiautomated value coproduction with productivity and satisfaction. This method comprises two parts: simple service machine (SSM) and intelligent service machine (ISM). Usage of SSM and ISM would lead to the formation of analysis and design of the CCS system that joins the service provider efforts with their customers for ensuring a customer‐centric idea management process. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

A Design Process for a Customer Journey Map: A Case Study on Mobile Services

A customer journey map (CJM) is a widely used tool to represent user experience with a service. Although numerous companies have used this tool to improve existing services or to develop new services, the maps are neither consistent nor mutually compatible because no clear design process for a CJM has been presented. This study aimed to develop a design process and rule sets for a CJM based on a human factors approach. The 10‐step process and the rule sets were built on case studies of 25 categories of mobile services. Large‐scale case studies were conducted with mobile service providers and combined with the result of a user diary method that collected users’ daily activities and the difficulties that the user perceived when performing a task. We suggested various methods for using the CJM to generate new service opportunities. The proposed design process and the way for opportunity discovery can help service designers to develop unified CJMs and to identify innovative service ideas.     

Transforming e-services evaluation data into business analytics using value models

The rapidly increasing penetration and use of the Internet, in conjunction with the explosion of various technologies based on it, gave rise to the development of numerous e-services, such as e-business, e-banking, e-government and e-learning ones. The websites providing these e-services collect large amounts of users’ activity and evaluation data. It is necessary to transform these data into useful business analytics that allow a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the e-service, the various types of value it generates, and its whole value generation mechanism, and at the same time provide guidance for its improvement and optimization. We propose and validate a methodology for transforming user evaluation data into useful business analytics, founded on the technology acceptance model, the IS success model and e-services. We define a three-layer value model for e-services, including concerning its efficiency, effectiveness and impact on users’ future behavior respectively. This value model is used for collecting and processing service evaluation data from users. We calculated two classes of business analytics: average users’ ratings to identify strengths and weaknesses of e-services; and the impacts of first- layer value measures on the second and third layer value ones. The latter allows a better understanding of the value generation mechanism for e-services and identification of improvement priorities. Our methodology has been applied and validated for an e-learning service provided by a university to technology professionals.