An integrated information system for real estate agency-based on service-oriented architecture

To enhance the efficiency of surfing the Internet, an integrated platform for real estate agency based on service-oriented architecture (SOA) is established. It employs the concept of search engine and loads the information provided previously by each real estate agency to this platform. Due to the different types of data structure from each real estate agency website, the standard format must be defined for integrating the information. In this paper, the standard is defined by XML and is used to integrate heterogeneous database. This standard format includes the data fields that are required by the agency websites. It is processed in the platform which is expandable by receiving information from other sources in the future. In consideration of the copyright regulation, the agents are allowed to login and to share specific information on this platform in order to increase the transaction rate. The system also includes a Google Map engine for GIS service that marks the spatial location as the users send the requests. It helps the users to find the demanded housing information and to retrieve the nearby geographic location in a very short time. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.