releases of an updated SNaaS instance. Depending

on the server's capacity, the provider can increase or

decrease identical application instances to run them on

a variable number of servers. This scalability requires a

multi-tier architecture supporting a balanced load with-

out any further alteration of social network software

architecture.• Tenant backend module: hosts the following components:

Service publishing component: the SNaaS

architecture delivers customized services. Each

service is modular and has several parameterized

features. Services and features are published in

registries and can be easily combined to create a

customized social network tool.

Pricing catalogue component: vendors that offer

SNaaS solutions based on a pay-as-you-go model

should set up a process of monetizing offerings

and managing revenues. The pricing catalogue

manages service and feature prices and provides

accounting and billing systems.Monitoring component: supports basic techniques,

such as heartbeat monitoring and alert mecha- nisms, and ensures the high availability of services. The monitoring module helps to respect service level agreements and <;)oS constraints.

7. Conclusion

In this paper, we identified some questions that will arise

when social networks become an element of enterprises' best

practices. Social networks have a role to play in opening up

new business opportunities for enterprises and sustaining their

growth. To assess the effective use of these opportunities,

measurement metrics are required. These metrics vary d e p e n d i n g

on the type of social network that an enterprise hopes to

capitalize on. We identified four types of social networks, namely

customer, supplier, partner, and competitor networks. We used the

notion of an interaction circle to identify these types of

networks.

In addition, we adopted the Software-As-A-Service model to

propose an architecture for social-network applications. This

architecture exhibits a good number of characteristics such as

centralized management and service integration and custornization.

Acknowledgements. This work was made possible thanks to the financial support of INS A of Lyon to the first author during his

visit in July 2009.

References

The International Network for Social Network Analysis, Visited August 2009. http://www.insna.org.

t8

Figure 4. Social network as a service architecture

product for many clients). However, customers have different requirements and expect a customized tool for their own business domain (e.g., one product for one client). This

leads to customer dissatisfaction and additional costs due to software upgrades, add-in development for new features, or adapt ion of new tools.

Business-oriented social-network tools such as iPoint,Idiro SNA Plus, Keyhubs, KXEN Social Network, Net-

Miner, and many others [l] are usually hosted by standalone servers. Conversely, social-network programs and data sources are distributed among servers in different places. In terms of collaboration, data sources and local tools should be accessible and able to locally extract and transform data, and exchange their computational results.

The evolution of social-network analysis tools and techniques

depend on their ability to shift from property in-

put/output formats, centralized architectures, and product-

oriented delivery to interoperable exchange formats, peer-to-

peer architectures, and service-oriented delivery to satisfy or

exceed customer expectations.

6.3. Proposed architecture for a social-network application

In response to the previous list of Imitations, we propose

to design a social network in compliance with the Software- as-a-Service (SaaS) model. This would make it possible to deliver licenses for social-network applications and offer their usage to customers as services on demand. Software vendors host Social-Network-as-a-Service (SNaaS) on their Web servers and disable them after the on-demand contract

expires. On-demand use and sharing of end-user licensesreduce IT investments in hardware and software. As for SNaaS suppliers, they can compete through low-costs to obtain rights to use their software on-demand.

The design of SaaS applications differs a lot from traditional client/server-based applications that application service providers deliver. SaaS applications are Web-native and built with a multi-tenant backend [5] to let multiple client organizations access a shared data model. The m u l t i -

tenant concept refers to a single instance of the software serving multiple client organizations (tenants). With a multi-tenant architecture, a software application is designed to virtually partition its data and configuration so that each client

organisation works with a customized virtual application

instance through a customized graphical interface.

Fig.4 depicts our proposed architecture for a Social-

Network-as-a-Service, which contains the following modules

• Tenancy partitioning module: permits to satisfy customers' different needs through a multi-tenancy

configuration. Each customer has its proper customized data model and graphical user interfaces, and shares the same application code that serves all customers without any apparent difference to end-users. The tenancy- partitioning module uses server resources efficiently while r e d u c i n g

maintenance costs and simplifying common codes updates. Configuration module: allows customers to access the

shared data model and set up their social network tools by selecting available features. This module also

manages security access rights.

• Contract management module: activates on-demandlicenses and enables the service agreement between the

customer and Service provider. It guarantees the Quality

of Services (QoS) constraints and respects software fees.

• SNaaS instance pool module: runs a single program

instance to serve all tenants. Thus, a community of

users instantly benefits from new functionalities and

17

3) A competitor-centric social network should state the nature of

relationships between an enterprise's competitor and his or her acquaintances in

the network, such as spontaneous-collaboration and competitor-of- competitor.

4) Finally, a pa r tne r -centric social network should state the nature of relationships between an enterprise's partner and his or her acquaintances in the network such as add-on and alliance.

5. How should t h e value a d d e d by social networks b e measured in an enterprise?

To measure the added-value of social networks to an enterprise, one

should answer the following questions for each type of aforementioned

social network. These questions could result into the establishment of

measurement metrics.

• When it comes to customer-centric social networks, some questions that

must be raised include:

1) How many new customers did the enterprise at- tract through its

customer's social networks'? The metric associated with this question is

simple to establish based on the number of new customers who, for

example, have accepted to sign up for the enterprise's new service.2) What is the enterprise's new market share after new customers have

signed up with the enterprise>-

When it comes to supplier-centric social networks, some questions that

must be raised include:

1) Was the enterprise successful in identifying the suppliers of this

enterprise's supplier? The metric associated with this question might not

be simple to establish if a supplier is not willing to release details on its

suppliers.

2) Was the enterprise successful in identifying the competitors of this enterprise's supplier?

• When it comes to competitor-centric social networks, some questions that must be raised include:

1) How does an enterprise track a competitor's plans to counter them? The

metric associated with this question can be established by identifying

the new products that a competitor announces.

2) How does an enterprise identify a competitor's best practices?

• When it comes to partner-centric social networks, some questions that must

be raised include:

1) How many new partners did the enterprise identify through its partner's

social networks?

2) How does an enterprise identify common or conflicting interests with

a partner?

6. How should social networks be deployed in an enterprise'?

6.1. Overview,.

Current approaches analyse social networks using applied

mathematical models that are .based on complex graph

structures. Social networks are par t of the Graph. Theory [2], which does not only provide the right means to visualize

individuals and their relationships [J 3] but a variety of mathematical

functions to evaluate network activities. Examples of social-network

measurement metrics are reported i n [2] and include

Betweenness, Closeness, Density, Path Length, and Reach. Due to the importance of social networks in modern societies,

many social network analysis programs have recently been developed

by commercial software companies and open source communities

(e.g., NetMiner, Keyhubs, iPoint, etc.).

In the meantime, the number of patent applications and

technologies related to social networking continues to in-

crease as shown in Fig.3. The United States Patent and

Trademark Office (USPTO) confirms that the number of

registered applications for social network analysis has grown by

about 250% per year over the past five years [12].

, I

')r,O • .tID'Io iI'(II';" :KIGl loot lOOt lOlt) Yf:.. r.,jOQ.'I!t~ .... _-' ..... '0'

Figure 3. Social network US paten! expectations(USPTO source)

6.2. Limitations of social network programs

Social-network programs analyse streams of input data to

unveil interconnections and visualize output results in terms of

networks. They do not only differ in their analysis, techniques but

also in the variety of input and output formats. Since they do

not share a common format, variety of input and output

format types are extensive used in social network programs

such as UCINET(*.dat), GraphML (*.xml), text(*.csv, edge list, *txt),

Excel (*.xls), Pajek (* .net), UCI'Net (*dl), and many 0thers

(e.g.,*.graphml, *.xgmml, *-gdf, *.agf). Exchanging data between

these programs is a challenge and is prone to errors.

Current trends in social network tools and techniques consist of

developing software to serve all customers (e.g., one

16

> "

poor (or misleading) recommendations. In [7J, McDonald analyzes the application of social networks to recommend individuals for possible collaboration based on their offered or needed expertise. In [14], Zhang and Ackerman look into search strategies that provide help in expertise location in social networks, This is particularly useful to find the rightpeople who Can give the right answer to a specific problem.

In [6), Maamar shows how the social context is critical to the success of e-commerce applications. Different types of relationships characterize these applications depending on the parties that take part in these relationships. Shopper and vendor participants can be connected through sell, bargain and buy relationships. Shopper and friend participants can be connected through a request-for-advice relationship. Finally, vendor and vendor participants can be connected through compete and cooperate relationships.

Though the aforementioned paragraphs discuss different, uses of social networks, it is not yet clear how to turn out these networks into useful means. Questions such as how enterprises capitalize on these networks, how enterprises make these networks available to their employees, and how enterprises maintain these networks are left unanswered and thus, responses will be provided on a case-by-case basis.

3. How must social networks be defined in an enterprise?

For an enterprise, we suggest that a social network should include all the stakeholders that directly fall into the in- teraction circles of this enterprise. We identify two types of interaction circles (Fig. ,1): inner and outer. On the one hand, the customer and supplier stakeholders are part of the inner circle as they constitute an enterprise's primary level of concern in terms of how to satisfy customer demands and how to rely on suppliers. On the other hand, the competitor and partner stakeholders are part of the outer circle as they constitute the second level of concern for an enterprise in terms of bow to be aware of competitor plans and how to seek the assistance of potential partners.

I) A customer-centric social network can be used by the enterprise to contact a customer's "friends" to disseminate information on products and services and hence, boost sales.

2) A supplier-centric social network can be used by the enterprise to establish a supplier's reliability level as perceived by those who have dealt with this supplier in the past, and thus to decide if the supplier is reliable.

3) A competitor-centric social network can be used by the enterprise to work with a competitor's allies to regulate markets and eventually identify solutions to common issues.

4) Finally, a partner-centric social network can be used by the enterprise to identify individuals and groups that an enterprise can work with to join forces and tackle complex initiatives.

4. How can social networks be captured in an enterprise?

Social networks are known to be tacit, informal and intangible. This can hinder their exposure and proper use. As a result, it is required to first acknowledge the existence of such networks, and then structure them so they become a concrete element of the enterprise's decision- making process. Briefly, a network consists of nodes and edges. ~,;odes refer to any type of object or entity such as individuals or organizations, and edges refer to relationships (or associations) between these nodes such as (he degree of friendship between two persons or distance between two cities. Relationships are sometimes directional, bidirectional, with weight, or a mixture of all of these elements.

In an enterprise, social networks need to be structured in a way that permits to reflect the specificities of each particular type of network.

I) A customer-centric social network should state the nature of relationships between an enterprise's customer and the acquaintances of this customer in the network, such as friendship and kinship (Fig. 2).

~,

".;..:;.:...,...J":"\'- r\y

C,:CUJtonlcri

;, IiA~qu:lnUtin~'cJ Of(\.I(,li'lf"Il" ,

_.. Fricnlolshir r.:l~htlfll,hlll

Figure 1. An enterprise's interaction circles

CUstomer,supplier, partner, and competitor stakeholders can each be the cornerstone of a specific type of socialnetwork.

Figure 2. Example of customer-centric social network

2) A supplier-centric social network should state the nature of relationships between an enterprise's supplier and his or her acquaintances in the network, such as supplier-of-supplier and competition.

15

-...

Social Networks as a Service in Modern Enterprises

Zakaria Maamar

Zayed University, Dubai, .UA.Ezakaria.maamar@zll.ac.ae

Abstract

The power of social networks stems from their ability to capture real-world phenomena such as collaboration. com petition. and partnerships. Social networks provide means for enterprises to capture and expose many informal connections between their stakeholders. In this paper, we dis cuss how social networks could sustain growth and unfold business opportunities in modern enterprises. Furthermore, we study various types of social networks and investigates metrics that measure their value-added to enterprises. in response to business-oriented social network requirements, we propose a multi tenant architecture to develop Social-Network-as-a-service (SNaaS) and allow efficient use of server resources while reducing maintenance cost and providing a high degree of customization to support each enterprise’s requirements.

Keywords: Social Network, Enterprise, Metric, Software-as-a Service.

1. Introduction

It is known that social networks stem out of multiple relationships between people. Can these relationships be useful in the world of work? Can enterprises capitalize on these relationships to increase their market shares? Can employees adopt new practices in line with these relationships? Finally, can social networks in the enterprise become accessible! These are some questions that have been raised following the recent boom of social applications such as Facebook (face book.com), Twitter (twitter. com) , and Bebo (bebo.com). Ethier reports that "the study of social networks is important since it helps us to better understand how and why we interact with each other, as well as how technology can alter this interaction" (3). Moreover, Ethier argues that "[tjhe field of social network theory has grown considerably during the past few years as advanced computing technology has opened the door for new research." In a report published by DEMOS1, enterprises' employees were encouraged to embrace social network applications such as Facebook and Bebo to establish and foster contacts with their colleagues,

I. www.mc.l.gov.satrechnology/ Ar4biclSubjc<u.ndlnformnlion rrech_Subjec_04.htm

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