Iosif Alvertis

Enterprise Collaboration Framework for Managing, Advancing and Unifying the Functionality of Multiple Cloud-Based Services with the Help of a Graph API

Nowadays, the proliferation of cloud-based services (CBS) has revolutionized the way people communicate, connect, share and eventually conduct business. Large and small and medium enterprises often adapt to this era by providing their core competence through an API. The present paper aims at describing a solution that manages, advances and unifies the functionality of the various CBS under a common framework that is being developed as a coherent graph API. Since the task of handling the evolution and complexity of the CBS API lifecycle is high, the framework is accompanied by a tool that creates a community of enterprises and developers actively engaged both in the usage of the Generic Graph APIs, but also in the update and improvement of these initial APIs.

Infusing social data analytics into Future Internet applications for manufacturing

Today, a new age of engagement and collaboration has emerged with the proliferation of usergenerated content in social networks and generally the Web 2.0, rendering it particularly difficult for enterprises to monitor and act upon all content following conventional data mining methodologies. In this paper, we present our approach for a Future Internet enabler (FITMAN Anlzer) that provides automated, social data analytics and aims at assisting enterprises in becoming more tuned to their customer needs and gaining insights into current and future trends to early embed them into product design. The FITMAN Anlzer implementation is domainindependent and allows any manufacturer to effectively train it based on his needs and create personalized reports to timely capture the right information. Our methodology includes trend analytics, polarity detection through machine learning, data querying through flexible reports and finally informative charts to visualize the results in order to help companies in their decision making procedures.

CloudTeams: Bridging the Gap Between Developers and Customers During Software Development Processes☆

Abstract The main challenge addressed by the EU-funded project CloudTeams is bridging the communication and collaboration gap between software developers and end users during the whole software development process in order to develop better accepted software. CloudTeams solves the problem by bringing together software developers and end users into one platform, thus providing a seamless environment where interaction with customers will feel natural and will validate the software product. It integrates popular software development tools and services and mashes them up with user participation practices. A sustainable community of end users provides feedback to the development teams at any stage of the software development cycle, from idea generation to beta testing. Through the introduction of novel collaboration and engagement methodologies, CloudTeams facilitates the development process and delivers Software-as-a-Service offerings, which are tested and verified with customers. In this paper we present the CloudTeams approach and the results of the first round of face-to-face interviews with stakeholders of the two user groups on the underlying challenges related to CloudTeams.

Challenges Laying Ahead for Future Digital Enterprises: A Research Perspective

Nowadays, digital enterprises are confronted with disruptive technological advancements in their constant quest for innovation and creativity. In order to evolve towards new forms of enterprises, driven by constant business model transformation, a number of challenges need to be addressed from a research and practice perspective. In this paper, a glimpse of the technological trends and visionary scenarios for Enterprises of the Future is provided, leading to the elaboration of the research challenges along the following dimensions: (a) Collaborative, Real-time, Proactive Business Analytics-as-a-Service, (b) Innovative, Web-based Business Models for New Kinds of Economies, (c) Federated, Innovation-driven Enterprise Collaboration Platforms, (d) Dynamic Discovery and Negotiation of the Intellectual Property Rights’ Flow.

User Involvement in Software Development Processes

Abstract Costs of software development and deployment are decreasing due to numerous open source projects and novel Cloud-based services (IaaS, PaaS, SaaS), but competition increases due to lowering entry barriers. The need to bring developers closer to their customer becomes vital for success, especially involving users into the very early stages of software development. This allows detecting flaws of conceptual and design nature, minimize unnecessary development costs, and warrant relevance for customers. This paper presents the CloudTeams methodology and platform that aim to bridge this gap, based on an existing groupware system supporting the notion of collaborative software development.

Internet-Based Enterprise Innovation Through a Community-Based API Builder to Manage APIs

More and more users, these days, keep fragmented data across the web in different applications, through various types of devices, PC, mobiles, wearable devices, etc. By taking advantage of an aggregative Graph Application Programming Interface (API), users have the ability to harness shattered data and keep them into a privacy-aware platform (Cloudlet) where permissions can be applied, and therefore let developers build useful applications from it. To make this unifying Graph API, the API Builder is proposed, as a tool for easily creating new APIs and connecting them with existing ones from Cloud-based Services (CBS), thus providing integration among services and making it easier for users and/or enterprises to reach a larger audience while conveying their message. Typical obstacles, like keeping up to date with CBS API versioning, that seems daunting for developers, are also tackled through semi-automation and the help of the community empowering the API Builder. In that way, application developers do not have to worry for merging various APIs or if the application-generated data are locked in silos of companies; now the user is the judge who gives access to their data and meta-data (i.e. especially context), to enable smarter, context-adaptive and richer in content applications.