Modeling e-Negotiation Processes for a Service Oriented Architecture

Abstract

Most of today's e-marketplaces support a single negotiation protocol. The protocol is usually built into the e-marketplace infrastructure, therefore if a new one is introduced then a time consuming and complex process of implementing it takes place. Moreover, participants in the e-marketplace need to adapt their interfaces to the new protocol, especially if they use automated tools to interact with the e-marketplace. This paper reports on a model-driven approach and a framework for rapid and user-friendly development of configurable service oriented e-negotiation systems. We believe that a formal specification of negotiation protocols and their separation from the market infrastructure that implements them is a step towards configurable e-negotiation systems. The protocols are graphically designed for the e-marketplace then mapped into web service orchestrations. Participants use automated negotiation systems to interact with the e-marketplace. These systems are generated based on the negotiation protocol implemented on the e-marketplace. A declarative language is used to specify negotiation strategies and tactics. We propose an algorithm to map Statechart models of negotiation protocols into web service orchestrations and we report on the current implementation of our framework.