Technical architecture for configurable working environments for SMEs

Collaborations between SME are different than the traditional OEM-supplier chains. Here are other requirements in the focus of interest: Low costs are often more important than powerful and complex software products as well as flexibility to integrate with any kind of application is more necessary than already available integration solution for big enterprise application, which are only sporadic used in SMEs. Therefore the CoVES (Collaborative Virtual Engineering for SMEs) project followed a new approach for flexible integration of web applications in collaboration environments. The approach differs from the currently promoted service oriented architectures. This paper focuses on two technical aspects of the CoVES architecture: Mashup concept, which is a technology for a seamless integration of web applications, and Single Sign On for an easy access on the distributed data sources.