Grid technologies to support B2B collaboration

In the context of the European Project BEinGRID (FP6), the authors have defined a set of design patterns to develop software components based on service oriented Grid technologies. Some of these patterns have been used to improve software components of a Service Oriented Grid Middleware, named GRASP, that the authors have defined, designed and implemented in the frame of a former homonymous European Project (FP5). The main improvement of GRASP due to the application of the BEinGRID design patterns is the support for the creation of Virtual Organizations. This paper presents the authors experience and lessons learnt in adopting the GRASP middleware to set up a business to business federated environment supporting collaborations among enterprises. The concrete case study relates to the on line gaming applications and the adoption of the Software as a Service business model to provide the game applications.