3 ARCHITECTURAL FRAMEWORK 27
3.2 OPEN PROFILING FRAMEWORK
3.2.2 Business Model
feasible for I-centric Service components19. In this case, it could mean that the temperature is too low in a certain room, or that an individual requested to turn on the heater in the room. The generated data is sent back to the Context Server (step 4). If necessary, this step can be repeated involving several instances of Context Interpreters.
An I-centric Service, responsible for this certain individual, has subscribed to changes of the category, the Context Interpreter has provided. If changes happen, the I-centric Service receives the new data (step 5). It processes the information that the temperature is too low in this certain room and possibly comes to the decision that the heater device standing in that room has to be turned on. The preferences of the individual user are taken into account to determine the ap-propriate temperature level. Therefore, it identifies the SDO, which represents a heater device nearby the user and sends a request to the heater’s usage interface (step 6). With this request, the I-centric Service demands the activation of the corresponding device. Finally, the SDO commu-nicates with the underlying Sensing and Controlling Environment. It accesses the physical heater device and turns it on (step 7). The activation represents the adaptation of the physical environment regarding a certain context. As mentioned before, ambient information, prefer-ences, and adaptability are integrated to fulfill the requirements of I-centric communications.
ments between different administrative domains or business roles. In example, one constraint for the communication between two business roles can be the existence of a third one that acts as a trust center for their communication. Stakeholders represent the highest aggregation level.
They compose different administrative domains.
stakeholder
business role
business role administrative domain
reference point
stakeholder
stakeholder business role administrative domain
reference point
reference point
business role administrative domain
business role
reference pointreference point
administrative domain business role
Figure 17: Generic Business Model
To illustrate the flexibility of such a business model, a short example for a business interaction is given in the following. The example uses four different business roles: customer, retailer, provider, and user.
User
Step 7: obtains usage rights Step 13: pays for service usage Step 15: potential contract modifications
Step 5:offers service Step 8:provides service Step 12:charges & bills Step 6:sign service
usage contract
Step 9:authorises Step 10:uses service
Retailer Customer
Step 1:offers service Step 4:provides service Step 11:charges & bills
Step 2:sign service usage contract
Provider
Step 3: obtains usage rights Step 14: pays for service usage Step 16: potential contract modifications
Figure 18: Examples of Business Interaction
From step 1 to step 16, the complete process of offering services at the provider side up to the service usage at user side is shown. A clear separation of responsibilities and relationships is required to ensure a trustful business interaction.
The scenarios outlined within the vision for I-centric communications require for exactly such kind of interaction by adding again the individual user as the central element. Individuals will act in distributed ad-hoc environments changing dynamically roles providing and consuming information form other individuals.
3.2.2.1 I-centric Implications for Business Modeling
As stated before, the influence of business models on functional architectures will increase.
Rather than to be the result of a research and development roadmap towards a coherent system, the I-centric communications system will be made up of various technologies configured to
specific user requirements as identified in the market. One of the most difficult problems for information and communication technology suppliers is linking product capabilities to evolving demand in the market. Historically, this has led to a complex relationship between the research and development, and financial sides of companies that provide information technology.
The problem is now even more complex. Much of the technology development process is now distributed among many companies and some major players in key information and communica-tion technology segments are downsizing their research and development commitments.
Information and communication technology now typically involves a substantial design compo-nent in which various technologies from different suppliers are configured together. Relation-ships between the installed technology base and the planning of future systems, products, and services were once managed via non-proprietary standards that were linked to the research and development cycles of dominant firms in various information and IT industry segments.
As the supply environment becomes much more fluid and dynamic, the design function can assume much of this co-ordination role, potentially creating new markets for new technologies.
How this design of future systems and services will materialize is not yet clear. An important research question should be raised here. How are the reference points being affected by the business environment? In order to answer such questions, dynamic modeling techniques are required. [W-WG2-BM]
Retailer
Network Provider
Service Provider Customer
Broker
3rd party Provider
…
Content Provider RP
uses &
provides
Figure 19: Individual as Center of the I-centric business model
The first major research task is the development of a generic business model for I-centric com-munications. This generic business model contains a set of common terminology as well as a generic framework of Business Roles, Stakeholders, Administrative Domains, Relations, Refer-ence Points, and Revenue streams. The individual can act as any available role communications with any other role (see Figure 19).
The generic model has to support the vision for I-centric communications featuring ambient-awareness, personalization, and adaptability.
The function of the model is to:
- specify a common frame for all roles in a system
- allow flexibility against business, regulation and technical change
- allow to define the Reference Points in a multi-domain environment
- allow deriving requirements for systems of different stakeholders
Again, the generic business model introduced in Figure 17 gives enough flexibility to be applied to I-centric communications. The remaining question is: How to integrate the individual user and the dynamic character, due to changing business roles, in such a model.
3.2.2.2 Relations between I-centric Communication Spaces
The vision for I-centric communications has introduced the concept of individual communica-tion spaces. An individual user is interaccommunica-tion with objects in his communicacommunica-tion space. Commu-nication between different individuals is done by sharing objects of their individual communica-tion spaces as shown in Figure 20.
People
News Food
Info News
Place Time
Food Info
People Movie Time
Food Money
Movie
Info
Place
News Place
Figure 20: Interconnected Communication Spaces
The particular physical resources, which are used for a certain communication request, are de-termined in the activation process of contexts and objects. These physical resources belong to administrative domains where certain roles are assigned. As users act in different contexts, the relationships to the administrative domains involved in a communication process have to be managed.
This causes the dynamic assignment of roles and employment of different reference points from the viewpoint of an individual. This fact is also amplified, as the environments themselves are highly dynamic and characterized by ad-hoc and peer-to-peer communication may be without any centralized control.
Stakeholder Administrative
Domain
Stakeholder News
Food Info
Administrative
Domain Administrative
Domain Reference Point
Figure 21: Mapping Objects to Business Relationships
The dynamic relationships between individual users and objects require new concepts like online-subscription and accounting, micro-payment, and federation between ad-hoc communi-cation environments.
The temporal unavailability of objects and services, and the question: who pays whom for pro-viding or using any physical resource is to be answered. A promising approach is to specify reference points between all involved instances, like introduced in the [W-TINA-BM].
The reference points have to support the functions requested above. For example, micro-payment between two objects has to be reflected by specifying the information to be exchanged and the relationships to other objects, which might act as certifying instances, billing, or ac-counting server.