An e-commerce framework for service assurance in the Internet

Future trends in the nascent Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry clearly indicate the existence of a business requirement for a market enabling framework allowing network operators to interact with users in the seamless, transparent sale and delivery of a wide range of services. In this context the need arises for dynamic service creation, configuration and delivery with service quality assurance via automated management of Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Such a framework has to be flexible enough to convey the varying information requirements of the various stakeholders involved in the service delivery chain, together with their internal processes. In this paper an innovative architecture for the negotiation of services with quality assurance is presented. The study is conducted keeping an eye on the latest standard proposals coming from the electronic business research community, with respect to both the modeling methodology and the actual design for implementation.