Distributed information system federating a virtual enterprise

A virtual enterprise can be defined as a multi-organization system. It is split into small entities federated according to different projects or affairs. Consequently, a common and distributed information system and convenient communication features are necessary to provide an efficient organization. The architecture proposed here is made of different layers: first, entities and their relationships according to the different projects are modelled, then information and decision functions are logically distributed among the entities according to this organization, last, the physical organization is based on the information flows, on the requested answering times and on the communication network features. As cooperation between the entities is mainly associated to information, remote accesses are based on traditional communication features as import, export, or broadcasting features, which provide consistent accesses to the shared information system and manage the releases of a same piece of information used concurrently by the different actors.