A conceptual framework for business driven integration

The interoperability among companies and the business to business (B2B) message exchange are key aspects for the growth of the business: companies can efficiently interact each other over the Web and so can improve its own business capability. The use of the B2B messages modify the way of operate of a company and, of course, the internal business process. The problems that may arise in the B2B message exchange are of two types: one is more methodological, aimed at choosing guidelines oriented to the integration between the business process and the definition of business messages; the other is more technological, aimed at choosing an infrastructural solution more suitable for development of message exchange. In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework to solve the two types of problem. The conceptual framework wants to help companies to define a proper B2B system for message exchange through a business integration solution. It is based on three layers (conceptual, logical and technological) and it covers two separate aspects (methodological and technological) and uses the semantic Web idea to link together the three different layers.