Abstract
The advent of the Internet has encouraged trading partners to collaborate electronically by leveraging the type of distributed applications usually referred to as business-to-business (B2B) applications. A review of the literature on B2B integration shows that designing B2B soultions is inherently complex because of the need to make integration design decisions at different levels of abstraction. For every decision, there may be several possible solutions offering different levels of quality. These alternatives may be offered in the form of integration approaches, patterns, models, technologies, standards, or protocols. In addition, integration design decisions and alternatives are often highly interdependent. Therefore, new approaches are needed to alleviate the design complexity of B2B applications. A framework is discussed that would help designers navigate design decisions and alternatives from early business process determination through the generation of technology-dependent integration architecture. Using patterns appropriately, the framework would enable designers to systematically evaluate and select design alternatives based on their quality attributes.