Taxonomy on Consistency Requirements in the Business Process Integration Context

Abstract

Consistency is a general goal in software development. The development of B2B integration (B2Bi) software has extended consistency requirements (CR) because B2Bi projects require personnel from different organizations to agree about the what and how of integrations and these projects require distributed computing as central IT infrastructure frequently is not available. The rise of numerous approaches targeting at consistency in the B2B area are evidence of these enhanced CRs. This paper refines the Open-edi business transaction model into a B2Bi schema by analyzing abstraction levels, development phases and distribution aspects of B2Bis. A taxonomy of CRs is then derived accordingly. Thus, this paper underlines the extended importance of consistency in B2Bis, furnishes a criterion for choosing B2Bi methods, helps classifying consistency support in B2B approaches and gives a starting point for finding consistency checking approaches.