Abstract:

Based on the specific characteristics of electronic commerce (E-
Commerce) requirements for an adequate software system support, this con-
tribution gives an overview of the respective distributed systems technology
which is (or will be shortly) available for open and heterogeneous electronic
commerce applications. Starting from basic communication mechanisms this
includes (transactionally secure) remote procedure call and database access
mechanisms, service trading and brokerage functions as well as security as-
pects including such as notary and non-repudiation functions. Further impor-
tant elements of a system infrastructure for E-Commerce applications are:
common middleware infrastructures, componentware techniques, distributed
and mobile agent technologies etc. Increasingly new and important topics in
this area are currently: workflow management support for compound and dis-
tributed E-Commerce services as well as negotiation protocols to support both
the settlement and the fulfillment of electronic contracts in E-Commerce ap-
plications. In addition to an overview of the state of the art of the respective
technology, the paper also presents briefly some aspects of related projects
conducted by the authors jointly with international partners (sponsored by
EU/ACTS, EU/ESPRIT, DFG) in order to realize some of the important new
functions of a systems infrastructure for open distributed E-Commerce appli-
cations.

CV:

W. Lamersdorf studied computer science at the Technical University of
Munich and University of Hamburg. After graduation in 1980, he spent a year
as guest scientist at the University of Maryland, USA, collaborating with
the National Institute of Standards (NIST) in the field of database
languages and semantic data models. 1985 he receved his doctorate from the
University of Hamburg.
1983 he joined the IBM Scientific Centre in Heidelberg, and then the IBM
European Networking Centre in the Distributed Applications research group.
There, he started concentrating on Open Systems communication in general,
and communication support for database and distributed applications in
specific. Since 1986 he also participated in international standardisation
in the area of Open Systems and Applications (e.g. for Remote Database
Access, RDA) in both national and international standards bodies (including
ECMA, DIN, and ISO).
In January 1991, W. Lamersdorf joined the staff of Hamburg University where
he is now a full Professor in the Department of Computer Science and leads
a research group on Distributed Systems. Areas of his current research
include application-layer communication, system support for open
distributed systems (including middleware, service trading/brokerage etc.),
open distributed applications (client/server and beyond, multi-media etc.),
distributed coordination and cooperation (e.g. workflow management and
mobile agent technology), and specific distributed application areas, such
as Environmental Information Systems as well as Electronic Commerce.
W. Lamersdorf has written, edited and co-authored several books and more
than 50 scientific papers internationally. He conducted variuos national
and international research projects - in most cases jointly with both
academic and industrial partners and funded by many leading institutions
(including EU/ACTS, EU/ESPRIT, and EU/TEMPUS, DFG, BMBF, GMD, IBM etc.).

http://vsys-www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de