An open digital environment to support business ecosystems

We present a Peer-to-Peer network design which aims to support business activities conducted through a network of collaborations that generate value in different, mutually beneficial, ways for the participating organisations. The temporary virtual networks formed by long-term business transactions that involve the execution of multiple services from different providers are used as the building block of the underlying scale-free business network. We show how these local interactions, which are not governed by a single organisation, give rise to a fully distributed P2P architecture that reflects the dynamics of business activities. The design is based on dynamically formed permanent clusters of nodes, the so-called Virtual Super Peers (VSPs), and this results in a topology that is highly resilient to certain types of failure (and attacks). Furthermore, the proposed P2P architecture is capable of reconfiguring itself to adapt to the usage that is being made of it and respond to global failures of conceptual hubs. This fosters an environment where business communities can evolve to meet emerging business opportunities and achieve sustainable growth within a digital ecosystem.