LAYERED ARCHITECTURE FOR ASSEMBLING BUSINESS APPLICATIONS FROM DISTRIBUTED COMPONENTS

Modern business applications are generally characterized as: distributed across many processors and/or sites, access data from multiple sources and have web-based interfaces. These applications may also involve systems or processes from multiple companies or vendor provided services. The changing business environment and technologies requires that the application be agile and adoptable in short period. Component based development has recently attracted increased attention as a preferred technology for developing business applications. However, the tools and techniques for the design, implementation, management and deployment of applications based on these technologies are at a very early stage of development. This paper presents an overview of a distributed architecture for the deployment of applications based on business components. The application of the architecture in an auto insurance claim domain is briefly described. A number of open research issues have been identified.