Peer-to-peer technology for interconnecting Web services in heterogeneous networks

The interconnection of software components is a key to enabling collaborative work. However, technology differences and security barriers like firewalls often hinder establishing collaborative infrastructures between enterprises or even within a single enterprise. We introduce a peer-to-peer based network infrastructure that transparently overcomes these problems using relay and routing mechanisms as well as different underlying transport protocols. We discuss the application of this technology to interconnect Web services.