Service-oriented Reference Architecture Research Articles

A Contribution to the Establishment of Reference Architectures for Mobile Learning Environments

The development and the use of learning environments, coupled with the evolution of mobile computing, have contributed significantly to the establishment of a new learning modality known as mobile learning (m-learning). In this new scenario, the educational environments, despite having many benefits and facilities with regard to teaching and learning, have problems and challenges that need to be addressed. One of the important aspects to be investigated concerns the establishment and adoption of architectural patterns. In fact, most of these environments are built in an isolated form, having their own architectures and structures, which may negatively impact the ability of standardization and support of architectural definition. The main goal of this paper is to investigate and define a service-oriented reference architecture for m-learning environments. The proposed architecture, named Ref-mLearning, aims to contribute to the evolution, reuse, and interoperability of such environments, enabling an increase in quality and cost reduction during their development, due to the use of features provided by service-oriented architecture. Ref-mLearning was also evaluated through qualitative and quantitative aspects: 1) in comparison with a reference architecture model and 2) with the support of specialists. The results showed that the proposed architecture comprises relevant elements with respect to a service-oriented reference architecture.

Fostering Networked Business Operations

Long being seen as commercially unsuccessful after the dot-com era, interest in web-based B2B electronic intermediaries is again increasing in the light of globalization and cost-pressure on procurement departments of enterprises. Driven by increased profitability, these systems are getting more sophisticated. Based on a thorough literature-driven requirements analysis, this paper presents a state-of-the-art service-oriented reference architecture for B2B electronic intermediaries and provides scientifically grounded recommendations for developing such systems. The framework supports practitioners to create and further develop B2B electronic intermediary systems. It also serves as a basis for future design-oriented research endeavors in the field. The value of the presented artifacts is demonstrated by means of two use cases.

Reference Architecture for Personalized E-learning Systems using Proxy and Caching (RAPESPAC)

Service-Oriented approach is the most appropriate architectural approach that is widely used for building highly large-scale enterprise systems. SORAPES is a serviceoriented reference architecture designed for enterprise elearning systems. This architecture is designed by re-using web services and learning objects for distributed environment. It is notified that the system generate more traffic during authentication/ authorization process and retrieval of information from the database. The problem here is to minimize the traffic during authentication and retrieval ode learning objects process. This traffic will be minimized by centrally managing caching scheme and secured web service requests. This improves the performance and scalability of SORAPES in distributed environment, and hence it is proposed to design reference architecture using proxy and caching to authentication. The objective of this research paper is to design a reference architecture using proxy and caching called RAPESPAC. The RAPESPAC reduces the load on large-scale e-learning applications in distributed environment by centrally managing and caching the web service requests. The important features of RAPESPAC are load balancing, proxy, caching and policy. This architecture could be deployed with confidence in high transaction volume service environments providing high availability of data and reliable security mechanism. General Terms Service-Oriented Computing, E-learning Systems, Distributed Computing.

ServiceOriented Reference Architecture for Personalized Elearning Systems 'SORAPES'

ServiceOriented Reference Architecture for Personalized Elearning Systems 'SORAPES'

Reference Architecture for Cross-Company Electronic Collaboration

Cross-organizational electronic collaboration is about to gain significant momentum and facilitates the emergence of a globally networked information service economy. However, existing solutions for the realization of such business relationships still exhibit weaknesses with respect to both managerial and technological aspects. In this work, we propose a service-oriented reference architecture for electronic business media that overcomes the drawbacks of today’s business-to-business (B2B) software products and services. Based on the St. Gallen media reference model, this reference architecture incorporates the design principle of modularity that proved critical for the success of numerous artifacts in other more mature industries. In particular, we investigate and revisit the principle of modularity with respect to its role in the computer industry and transfer it to the context of organizing and implementing electronic cross-company collaboration. On the basis of a case study in the field of public administration in Switzerland, we show its real-world applicability and its improvement potential.

Global industrialisation of information-intensive services: a reference architecture for electronic business media

The relentless march of improvements in the cost-performance ratio of information technology today, facilitates the provision and consumption of Electronic Information-Intensive Services (EIIS) across company boundaries. However, existing products and services exhibit both managerial and technological weaknesses. Therefore, new concepts are required to facilitate a comprehensive industrialisation of cross-organisational EIIS. In this work, we present and thoroughly discuss a modular, service-oriented reference architecture for electronic business media which allows for realising 'Lean' management and implementation of cross-organisational collaboration. Based on the IEEE Recommended Practice for Architectural Description, in combination with the St. Gallen Media Reference Model, this reference architecture provides four main views: community (structural organisation), process (process-oriented organisation), services and infrastructure. By applying this reference architecture to the case of public administration in Switzerland, we show its potential to realise a 'Lean' organisation and implementation of cross-organisational electronic collaboration.