Distributed Architectures and Components for the Virtual Enterprises

A comprehensive solution for enterprise information systems, access to technical or business information, and electronic publishing and commerce for the concurrent enterprising of tomorrow, requires the integration of new sophisticated technologies and systems. This paper presents the research and results achieved in the framework of the VEGA project, establishing an infrastructure supporting the technical and business operations of virtual enterprises, with workflow tools and distributed architectures developed in compliance with product data technology. The VEGA objective is a platform enabling companies to work together, and being the basement for future integration and distribution of business components as promoted in the WONDA 2 project. The WONDA main goal is to specify a scalable 3-Tier component-based architecture for secure and sophisticated access to versatile information systems and electronic content. This paper, which reports on the VEGA’s story and introduces to some WONDA concepts, provides a limited picture of the overall objectives and results achieved in this still experimental area, and should be an incentive for the reader to go further into the projects achievements.