Distribution issues in the design and implementation of a virtual market place

Abstract

This paper describes an investigation into the distribution issues surrounding the design and implementation of virtual market places (ViMPs). The paper starts by describing the requirements customers and service providers have from a ViMP. It is then shown how the requirements deemed most important can be addressed by exploiting the inherent distribution of certain aspects, and by distributing other aspects of such market places. In particular, the paper concentrates on the structuring of the information space describing the services and products, and its distribution between the providers and the market place mediator. Primarily, this supports the implementation of phased dialogues between the customer and the providers, while at the same time addressing the providers' desire to protect business sensitive processes and information. Distributing the dialogue in time allows customers and providers to interact more flexibly and to gradually build understanding and trust between them, before divulging any business or personally sensitive information to each other. The distributed approach supports a scalable market place and also points towards a way of addressing providers' legacy problems. It is also shown how the apparent contradiction of a distributed market place and the need to monitor and control it for regulation purposes can be addressed, without compromising the ability of the system to scale. Finally, the design and implementation of a virtual insurance market place using Java on a CORBA compliant platform are presented.