XML, Web Services, and the Data Revolution

By Frank  P.  Coyle

As we've seen, the Web services architecture is based on repositories that allow businesses to find each other and begin to interact over the web. Using a repository as a central information source is an effective way to reduce the difficulty clients and businesses have in finding each other. However, the Web services approach isn't the only way to organize interactions around a repository. Another approach that also uses repositories to line up business partners is ebXML. Electronic Business XML represents a global initiative to define processes around which business can interact over the Web. It is a technology aimed at bringing the benefits of B2B data exchange to a global audience of small, medium, and large businesses. The broad effort of ebXML includes multiple specifications that define standard ways of exchanging business messages, conducting trading relationships, communicating data in common terms, and defining and registering business processes.

The key players behind ebXML are the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business, the technical and e-business group responsible for developing and promoting global business processes and tools, and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), the international, nonprofit consortium of technology companies formed to promote open , collaborative development of interoperability specifications based on standards such as XML and Standard Generalized Markup Language.

The first phase of the ebXML initiative, having met its 18-month deadline in May 2001, has received wide industry support. It continues to gain support from a variety of sources and other standards organizations, including the following groups:

• RosettaNet, a consortium of more than 400 companies in information technology, electronics, and semiconductor manufacturing, plans to integrate the ebXML Messaging Services Specification into future releases of its XML-based B2B initiative.

• Two Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) standards groups ”the Accredited Standards Committee X12 and the United Nations Directories for Electronic Data Interchange for Administration, Commerce and Transport Working Group ”have announced support for the ebXML effort to establish a set of core components for global business-process integration.

• The Global Commerce Initiative, representing manufacturers and retailers, has selected ebXML as the basis for its trading exchanges and B2B communications.

• The Open Applications Group Inc. has announced that it will incorporate the ebXML specifications into more than 180 business transaction standards it now supports.

• Other industry groups that have embraced ebXML include the Automotive Industry Action Group, Health Level Seven, and the Open Travel Alliance.