《Platform Architecture for》.pdfVIP

Platform Architecture for Networked Businesses 146 Platform Architecture for Networked Businesses Akihiko Takase, D. Sc. OVERVIEW: Today’s enhanced competitive business environment is forcing Susumu Kikuchi enterprises to concentrate on their core businesses. To support this, they are splitting off the commodity functions of their business systems in order to configure a new business platform. The network infrastructure is the key component of the business platform; it can no longer be a simple IP-packet transfer system, as it is in the Internet era. Instead, it must be a sophisticated value-adding virtual networking system utilizing IP and information technologies. This paper considers the architecture of the new business platform, emphasizing the role of the network infrastructure from the viewpoint of virtual networking as a service-enabling technology. It also describes solutions for businesses to prepare for their individual future, in which each business will need advanced system engineering to adapt its core business to the new business environment it will face. INTRODUCTION competitive environment, it would be unrealistic for CHANGES in the business environment are each enterprise itself to develop and maintain all the accelerating in this age of glob