Distributed and concurrent processing of business object documents in support of e-enterprise integration

The Internet and distributed object technologies have made it possible for different business enterprises to draw upon the best of their resources for conducting joint business as a virtual e-enterprise (VEE). To enable virtual e-enterprises, the integration of legacy applications and the modeling and enactment of concurrent business processes are necessary. The authors combine the features of the messaging approach and the distributed object approach to system integration. Business Object Documents (BOD) are used for transmitting business operations and data among application systems. Message transmission is supported by two underlying communication infrastructures: CORBA and Java RMI. The separation of messaging from communication infrastructure allows the underlying infrastructure to be changed without impacting application systems. Also, business processes are modeled as sequences or network structures of BOD transmissions. The process models are replicated at all sites and used by an extended information infrastructure to enable distributed, concurrent enactment of processes.