Toward a Dynamic E-Commerce Automation with XML and Workflow Techniques on the Grid

Grid computing, which is characterized as large-scale distributed resources sharing and cooperation, is becoming a mainstream technology in distributed computing. Workflow, as the automation of a business process, can take advantage of the grid-computing environment to provide dynamic business automation for e-commerce. In this paper, we discuss the idea of using XML and workflow techniques to cooperate various grid services to implement e-commerce automation. The dynamic grid services cooperation can be plugged into a workflow to fulfill a specific business operation. A workflow can be split into sub-workflows to be executed in different organizations. XML is chosen for message communication format, which enables the grid agents to carry, switch, and exchange domain-specific XML interpreters so that they can switch roles to participate in different business partnerships or relationships. Via the workflow and XML techniques, the cooperation of grid organizations and sharing of grid resources are capable of supporting large-scale dynamic e-commerce automations.