Filter and broker: An integrated architecture for information mediation of dynamic sources

When making decisions, access to information and proactive provision of information have become a business imperative. It can be expected that a tremendous amount of information needs can be satisfied much better today by what is offered in information networks, be it the Internet or a corporate intranet for knowledge management purposes. Yet there is also a fair chance that someone issuing a search request (e.g., on the Web) will get drowned in a flood of useless information and thus may miss the only useful tidbit that comes along with it. Likewise, producers of information may not be able to identify suitable customers. Various approaches have been suggested to cope with these problems, for instance, databases containing meta-information or data-warehouse systems. The most promising approach is the use of electronic marketplaces, where consumers and producers of information virtually meet for interaction. A special blend of information traders strives to satisfy the needs of both. In this article we propose an architecture that implements a new consumer-producer interaction and discuss the major components in detail: (a) brokers, who play the role of intermediaries between producers and consumers, and (b) filters, which try to reduce the load of information on either of the participants.