The NIMBLE project aims to perform research leading to the development of a cloud platform specifically targeted to supply chain relationships and logistics. Core capabilities enable firms to register, publish catalogues for products and services, search for suitable supply chain partners, negotiate contracts and supply logistics, and develop private and secure information exchange channels between firms. The intention is to support a federation of NIMBLE instances, all providing a set of core services, and each potentially specifically tailored to a different aspect. The vision is to enable a federation of NIMBLE instances, such that end users belonging to different NIMBLE instances may engage in B2B operations. While each instance provides the core common capabilities as mentioned above, A NIMBLE provider can take the open source infrastructure and bundle it with sectorial, regional or functional added value services and launch a new platform instance. Such specializations may take place at the industry level, namely adding specific capabilities for a specific industry, or at a regional level. NIMBLE aspires to a federated yet interoperable eco-system of platforms that provide B2B connectivity. Such a common, yet federated infrastructure opens the door for multiple platform providers, with a diverse set of platform instances that still can collaborate. This concept provides also the ability of the administrator or governing body of an instance to decide with which other instances to federate.

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