A Component-based Framework for Distributed Business Simulations in E-Business Environments

Simulations preserve the knowledge of complex dynamic systems and consequently transfer the knowledge of the cohesions of its elements to a specified target group. As the progress in information technology and therefore the dynamic e-business driven economy adapts even faster to the business demands, new ways to preserve this growing amount of knowledge have to be found. This paper presents an extensible business simulation framework which is realized as a component-based distributed Java Version 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE) architecture. The framework aspires to offer an extensible and domain independent simulation environment which ensures the return of investment in the sense of implementing this framework once and extending it to the future requirements of diverse domains in e-business. The system architecture follows the requirements in offering distributed deployment of its components on highly standardized level by nevertheless staying vendor independent. The architecture itself was developed by model driven architecture (MDA)-conform software engineering methods using best of breed design patterns composed to a flexible micro-architecture which possess import facilities for simulation entities (business objects) and (business) processes from e-business solutions. Combining the features of the framework, the layered pattern driven micro-architecture, and the distributed J2EE architecture, the postulated knowledge transfer from rapid changes in e-business can be realized.