Agent-supported collaboration and interoperability for networked enterprises: Modeling interactions and service compositions

The paper presents an agent-supported framework for improving solutions for enterprise interoperability and enterprise collaboration. We present and explain the basic approach and system architecture. Special emphasis is put on how agents can support enterprise interoperability as well as enterprise collaboration services. The framework adopts a modeling approach for the description and execution of business processes. With this a system engineer can describe the interaction protocols that should be used at an intuitive level and transform the model down to executable code. Private partner processes can be integrated using a mapping approach to bridge technical interoperability gaps. In addition to modeled service compositions, the framework also supports automatic composition of semantically enhanced services based on a transformation to logic programs.