An Internet-based negotiation server for e-commerce

This paper describes the design and implementation of a replicable, Interne t-based negotiation server for conducting bargaining-type negotiations betw een enterprises involved in e-commerce and e-business. Enterprises can be b uyers and sellers of products/services or participants of a complex supply chain engaged in purchasing, planning, and scheduling. Multiple copies of o ur server can be installed to complement the services of Web servers. Each enterprise can install or select a trusted negotiation server to represent his/her interests. Web-based GUI tools are used during the build-time regis tration process to specify the requirements, constraints, and rules that re present negotiation policies and strategies, preference scoring of differen t data conditions, and aggregation methods for deriving a global cost-benef it score for the item(s) under negotiation. The registration information is used by the negotiation servers to automatically conduct bargaining type n egotiations on behalf of their clients. In this paper, we present the archi tecture of our implementation as well as a framework for automated negotiat ions, and describe a number of communication primitives which are used in t he underlying negotiation protocol. A constraint satisfaction processor (CS P) is used to evaluate a negotiation proposal or counterproposal against th e registered requirements and constraints of a client company. In case of a constraint violation, an event is posted to trigger the execution of negot iation strategic rules, which either automatically relax the violated const raint, ask for human intervention, invoke an application, or perform other remedial operations. An Event-Trigger-Rule (ETR) server is used to manage e vents, triggers, and rules. Negotiation strategic rules can be added or mod ified at run-time. A cost-benefit analysis component is used to perform qua ntitative analysis of alternatives. The use of negotiation servers to condu ct automated negotiation has been demonstrated in the context of an integra ted supply chain scenario.