Chapter 4: Extended Enterprise Pattern

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The Extended Enterprise business pattern, which is also known as the Business-to-Business or B2B pattern, addresses the interactions and collaborations between business processes in separate enterprises. This pattern can be observed in solutions that implement programmatic interfaces to connect inter-enterprise applications. In other words, it does not cover applications that are directly invoked via a user interface by business partners across organizational boundaries.

Note 

The Application patterns for Extended Enterprise are basically the implementation of Application Integration across organizational boundaries. The differentiation is mainly in the way Quality of Service aspects affect the Runtime patterns.

4.1 Using the pattern

Application patterns for Extended Enterprise are basically the implementation of Application Integration across organizational boundaries. The differentiation is mainly in the way Quality of Service aspects affect the Runtime patterns. In Table 4-1 you can see some cross-industry examples of the Extended Enterprise pattern.

Table 4-1: Cross-industry examples

Service	Examples
Buy Side	Direct Procurement (SCM) Indirect Procurement (MRO) Supply chain execution
Sell Side	B2B e-commerce (Distributors)
Trading Partner Modernization	EDI Modernization
Exchange Participation	Private e-exchanges Public e-exchanges

In Table 4-2 we list some industry-specific example applications that can be implemented though the Extended Enterprise pattern.

Table 4-2: Industry-specific examples

Industry	Example applications
Manufacturing	Supply chain planning Supply chain execution Vendor-Managed Inventory
Travel	Checking flight or room availability Making or modifying reservations
Retail	Checking supplier inventory Placing replenishment orders Paying suppliers automatically
Financial	Transferring payments Checking account balances Obtaining credit information Loan Origination Processing securities
Telecommunication	OSS Integration Cross organization order management Managed service provider interconnect

What's next

If you are not yet sure that your business problem can be solved by the functionality enabled through an Extended Enterprise solution design, the guidelines in the next section provide additional information on choosing this Business pattern. Business and IT drivers, the e-business context appropriate for this solution type, and additional solution details are discussed here.

If you have determined that the Extended Enterprise business pattern can provide an appropriate solution design for your business needs, the next step is to select an Application pattern. The Extended Enterprise business pattern can be implemented using any one of three Application patterns discussed here, providing solution flexibility so that the selected Business pattern can address the specific needs of the business process being automated.

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