Balancing of Heterogeneity and Interoperability in E-Business Networks: The Role of Standards and Protocols

To reach this interoperability visibility and common understanding must be ensured on all levels of the interoperability pyramid. This includes common agreements about the visions, political and legal restrictions, clear descriptions about the collaboration scenarios, included business processes and-rules, the type and roles of the Documents, a common understandable vocabulary, etc. To do this in an effective and automatable manner, ICT based concepts, frameworks and models have to be defined, that have to be known and understood, accepted and that have to provide additional e-benefits for all participating partners. In addition, ICT systems, tools and other instruments must be compliant with all the restrictions defined by the interoperability pyramid and they have to support the work properly and efficient, and last but not least they have to ensure trust and minimize e-business risks. Nowadays, many profitable and well working individual solutions on the market may be found. But there still is a gap for more general and well working interoperability solutions. This article shows the state of the Art in Research and Practice in building, managing and maintaining E-Business solutions under the focus to enhance interoperability based on standards, protocols and other helpful concepts, instruments and examples. To provide better understanding for non-specialists, also, the authors systemize the complex and interdisciplinary content and offer additional helpful explanations.