Enterprise collaboration: On-demand information exchange using enterprise databases, wireless sensor networks, and RFID systems

New extended enterprise models such as supply chain integration and demand chain management require a new method of on-demand information exchange that extends the traditional results of a global database query. The new requirements stem from, first, the fact that the information exchange involves large numbers of enterprise databases that belong to a large number of independent organizations, and second, these databases are increasingly overlapping with real-time data sources such as wireless sensor networks and radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems. One example is the industrial push to install RFID-augmented systems to integrate enterprise information along the life cycle of a product. The new effort demands openness and scalability, and leads to a new paradigm of collaboration using all these data sources. The collaboration requires a metadata technology (for reconciling different data semantics) that works on thin computing environments (e.g., emerging sensor nodes and RFID chips) as well as on traditional databases. It also needs a new extended global query model that supports participants to offer/publish information as they see fit, not just request/subscribe what they want. This paper develops new results toward meeting these requirements.