Contents of
October Issue
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Contents of October Issue |
Telecooperation in open networks
Munich, 14-10 -1996 Distributed working structures in networked virtual enterprises, techniques and applications of telecooperation, aspects of legal binding and security in business processes via open networks are important topics in the information age. An overview of the state-of-the-art, especially for CAE usage, was given by Professor Dr. Heinz Thielmann from the GMD Research Center in Darmstadt, at the Daimler-Benze CAE workshop beginning of October. .Thielmann said he expects that two or three proven security techniques will become quasi-standards.
Today, companies concentrate on their main businesses and outsource activities that do not belong to their core competence. Thielmann noted the following trends within the structure of economic activities:
This results in a new concept: competence alliance. There is one lead company with its face to the customer, the co-operating partners stay in the background, but these roles can change. Prof. Thielmann gave some examples. The automotive industry has its own product competence but in the background there are external sub-suppliers, dealers, and service stations. This results in an entirely new approach for services. By outsourcing, new services are created:
This can result in creating separate companies or business units for each service. The same happens with information. Information management creates new services: information acquisition, information distribution and information compression . These can be handled by other companies.
If one weights a prototype with the factor one in cost and time, there is a factor of eight to ten in both time and cost, to develop it further and bring it as a real product successfully into the market. The new virtual factory or company with multiple sub-contractors and independent services especially need fast interconnections to reduce costs and time. The interplay of organisational structures, processes and systems as well as tools is another candidate of networking.
For improved and competent activities , networked companies need fast information exchange, information access, information processing as well as multimedia presentations and processing, time shifted communication for the global activities and support of the business process workflows.
All these elements result in multimedia tele-cooperation. This approach is supported by new networking technologies that started in the seventies with the connection of terminals to a central mainframe, the connection of PCs, fax, printer and server in LAN, the company-wide networking of research, administration and production. Thielmann's vision for the next century is the integration of all the different groups of sub-contractors, dealers, customers and companies/producers via Internet.
The results of this new approach can be seen clearly. Partner 1 for example is responsible for the business-, resource-strategy and the competence management. Partner 2 only responsible for the last two topics, partner 3 for research and resource strategy, partner 4 for purchase and production, partner n for logistics, marketing and sales. The real product is then offered to the customer. This means that it is not important how the work is done but that it is done by the different partners in a synchronous way - concurrent engineering and producing.
The techniques for the virtual enterprise are available today. Prof. Thielmann showed different layers, comparable to the OSI model. The top-down approach, optional for networked companies:
Some technical solutions for these services are tele-conferencing, mailing, and online-services. Some of these have legal bindings, although sent via the net. Theilmann presented some examples of multimedia tele-cooperation, the TEL-CAD, electronic brainstorming or the virtual fair.
In the virtual showroom of Mercedes, a customer can select his specific car in 3-D and different colours and extras.
In the last part of his talk Prof. Thielmann examined the topic security. It means protection against:
The end-to-end-security means that users correspond via an unprotected information transport medium but security is assured between the users terminals. The access network at the sender's side and the distribution network at the receiver and the public networks in-between keep unprotected. Thus the end-user needs security tools, encryption, public key methods, electronic signature, smart cards or PIN-codes for example. An other important aspect in the CAE field is the database security, here the same problems can be recognised but moreover special functions are necessary for e.g. access, reading/retrieval, manipulation and statistics about user behaviour. As the CAD/CAE database contains enterprise critical data this apect is an important issue.
He pointed to a new research area, security modelling. The chain of communication elements from terminal -> access -> transport -> access -> terminal is modelled for unauthorised attacks and manipulations. Defending models can be developed from this approach.
In his concluding remarks Prof. Thielmann summarised the technical and legal aspects. Not all security requirements can be solved by technical solutions, so legal conditions are necessary. The deregulation of the monopoly of the telecomms market implies communication across competing operators. This requires technical and legal provisions for secure telecommunications. In Germany some institutions like BSI (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik - governmental agency for security in the information techniques) are working on frame conditions. In September 1995 a paper was published onSicherheit in Telekommunikations-Netzen (Physical security in telecommunications networks)" (Part 1: Physikalische Sicherheit im Zugangsnetz - Physical security in the access net). But as business applications are increasing between global partners, these are not sufficient. International legal conditions are necessary. Security becomes a strategic issue for the Information Society , involving users, network- and service operators, suppliers, administrations, politics, universities and others.
Thielmann mentioned project Ladenburg of the Daimler-Benz-Foundation on "Security in the communications techniques" with 23 partners from university, research, government and industry - vendors, software houses and providers. There are some European projects, E2S - End-to-End Security over the Internet - and SEMPER - Secure Electronic Marketplace for Europe - which also cover these areas.
© The HOISe-NM Consortium 1996