Building an e-marketplace on a peer-to-peer infrastructure

Abstract

Abstract. Existing e-marketplaces, built on traditional client-server architectures, severely restrict the scope and dynamics of Business-to-Business (B2B) interactions. Peer-to-peer (P2P) architectures will provide far more decentralised infrastructures, while allowing a much wider range of business patterns to take place. On one hand, the interaction over a P2P network resembles the way real-world enterprises perform business with each other. On the other hand, a small set of simple services is enough to support complex business processes over a P2P infrastructure. Incidentally, most of the required technology is readily available, though it may be necessary to bring in an appropriate integration of different concepts. The paper discusses the implementation of essential services for P2P e-marketplaces, based on one of the leading P2P platforms, and illustrates its benefits by applying the P2P approach to a vendor of industrial equipment.

On the Concurrency of Inter-organizational Business Processes

“…In order to formalize this behaviour using π-calculus, we will assume that the following services are available in the market [29]:…”

P2P Infrastructure for Tourism Electronic Marketplace

“…Buyers will then use P2P search capabilities to locate and retrieve offers, followed by interaction with selected suppliers over the P2P network infrastructure itself. This new e-Marketplace model overcomes all of the previous disadvantages (Ferreira, 2002). It is more flexible and reinforces trust between business partners.…”

“…The traditional electronic marketplace (e-Marketplace) is a Web portal where buyers and suppliers come together to explore new business opportunities (Ferreira, 2002). Basically, an e-Marketplace brings buyers and sellers together, encouraging them to undertake new trading exchanges, providing a wide range of services to facilitate transactions.…”

“…The speed of growth and the number of users publishing offers and trading should be one of the most important success metrics. However, although traditional e-Marketplaces have many advantages, they have also some disadvantages and limitations: they are centralized information repositories; are loosely connected, its members cannot group together or build virtual communities; have price-based decisions and do not allow iterated agreements (Ferreira, 2002). These characteristics point to a number of drawbacks that can ultimately explain why this business model has proved to be ineffective (Ferreira, 2002).…”

“…However, although traditional e-Marketplaces have many advantages, they have also some disadvantages and limitations: they are centralized information repositories; are loosely connected, its members cannot group together or build virtual communities; have price-based decisions and do not allow iterated agreements (Ferreira, 2002). These characteristics point to a number of drawbacks that can ultimately explain why this business model has proved to be ineffective (Ferreira, 2002). On the other hand, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) computing model has allowed the creation of new business models and services that can bring new added value when used in the e-Marketplace construction.…”