B2B Integration : A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce

404 B2B Integration — A Practical Guide to Collaborative E-commerce
Is common vocabulary alone sufficient for agents to locate and
communicate with each other? No. Agents need to know the addresses,
locations and names of the remote agents in order to communicate with
them. Extensible Name Service (XNS) maintains the dictionary and
address book for Web agents. XNS provides a common vocabulary and
a common global naming and addressing system for permanent linking
of Web agents.
13.10.1. XNS: A dictionary and address book for
web agents
The HTML linking mechanism for Web pages was based on Domain
Name System (DNS), developed to name host computers on the Internet.
But DNS names are far from ideal for naming Web agents, which
represent more dynamic resources, such as people and businesses.
Furthermore, Web agents need to be able to: a) move on a network (like
people or businesses move locations) and b) change their names (like
people or businesses change their names) — both without breaking their
links with one another. For this reason Web agents needed something
DNS was unable to provide: permanent, universal addresses.
Software
XNS Naming &
Addressing System
XNS Name: Evan
XNS ID: 10000
XNS Address:
78.202.15.3 XNS Link
(10000
to 20000)
XNS Name: Ben
XNS ID: 20000
XNS Address:
80.187,13,2
Figure 13.9. — XNS naming and addressing system linking web agents