1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to a system and method for partial ordering service capabilities in an e-marketplace hub. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system and method for forwarding a message when the message includes, at a minimum, constraints imposed by the message recipient.
2. Description of the Related Art
The benefits and the flexibility offered by Internet computing have led to the advent of electronic market places for businesses. Generally, electronic market places act as a hub that brokers business transactions between buyers, sellers, and various service providers. Business transactions may include purchase orders, requests for bids, invoices, or an agreed acknowledgement of a receipt. The complexity of electronic exchange definitions is increasing to enable trading partners to go beyond the simple exchange of documents. For example, trading partners may collaborate on additional subjects, such as supply chain management.
A user joins an e-marketplace hub by subscribing to various services that the hub offers. During the subscription process, the user configures his account and identifies a set of capabilities based upon the user's business practices. For example, a user may impose security properties for messages it receives. An instance of such a constraint would be the requirement by the recipient that it deals only with hub members that support message confidentiality (encrypted messages) during transport on open networks. Additionally, the user may identify a service level of a particular capability. Using the example described above, the user may require each received messages to be DES encrypted.
Once the user configures his account and becomes a new hub member, the user is able to establish trading partner links with other hub members. A challenge found with establishing trading partner links is that hub members pose constraints over potential trading partners that the hub has to verify prior to establishing a trading partner link. Using the example described above, the hub needs to ensure that only hub members supporting message confidentiality during transport on open networks be allowed to establish a transaction link with the new hub member. Otherwise, the message recipient may receive messages that are not encrypted which violate the message recipient's business practices.
Furthermore, a hub member may specify a constraint when in fact the hub member may support other capabilities. For example, a hub member may specify a DES security constraint for receiving messages when in fact the hub member has DES and RC4 security capabilities. What is needed, therefore, is a way for an e-marketplace hub to ensure that trading partner links may be established when a sending hub member has an equal to capability compared to a recipient's constraints imposed on the sending hub member.