Patent ID: 7912810

Claim:
An integration platform for integrating carrier services with an enterprise-scale business process that is supported by modules of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system of an enterprise, comprising: a discovery component including a processor that provides general Web services, which perform functions related to the enterprise-scale business process, and specific Web services, which perform functions of a Web service offered by a specific carrier, wherein the general Web services are provided by a third party different from the enterprise and the carrier; a connect component including a processor, provided by at least one of a plurality of carriers, that publishes specific Web services, which perform functions of a Web service offered by the carrier to the discovery component, wherein the functions performed by the specific Web services offered by the carrier include ordering information related to a product offered by the enterprise; and an enterprise component including a processor, deployed by the enterprise, that: receives a request to discover a specific Web service, sends the request to the discovery component, retrieves, in response to the sending of the request, a specific Web service published by the connect component, wherein the retrieval of the specific Web service includes querying the requested service from the connect component and other connect components, combines a general Web service with the retrieved specific Web service into an enterprise service, wherein the combined enterprise service is represented by a composition definition defining Web service calls stored in a database table and processed by a service, activates, within the ERP system, the enterprise service, invokes the enterprise service, and executes the general Web service and the selected specific Web service to obtain the ordering information related to the product offered by the enterprise.