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The Benefits of ebXML for e-Business
Introduction
With thousands of users globally the ebXML infrastructure
is beginning to enter the mainstream of business consciousness today. Born from a process began by two
organizations – UN/CEFACT
and OASIS – who each brought unique backgrounds and solution envisioning
together, ebXML has created a new and compelling metaphor for conducting
e-Business via the Internet.
The vision and model for better e-Business using open
standards was created by combining the business knowledge gained from twenty
years of EDI-based interactions from CEFACT with the OASIS web commerce and
marketplace expertise of internet-based companies using XML. That model seeks to move from processes
that are highly labour intensive to configure and deploy manually in a paper
based culture to a world where trading partners can discover each other and
then begin to do business electronically by linking their systems together
using ebXML and the Internet.
Each step of this process is supported and enabled by
ebXML through the use of discreet components that are engineered to deliver
specific functionality. Each component
can be used individually or combined as needed. Just as LINUX is widely used by businesses
today to run their web sites and services, the ebXML infrastructure provides
the means for open and low-cost global commerce.
The business vision is to create new ways for companies to
trade globally in secure and reliable digital environments using methods that
implement legally valid contracts and exchanges. Also for governments to be able to reach
citizens and companies using public standards that provides open access. The ability for small businesses, not just
large corporations, to be able to employ the benefits of electronic business
processes is also a key requirement.
The LINUX communities, through organizations such as the
Open Source Development Lab (OSDL),
have begun to incorporate the ebXML infrastructure into the LINUX operating
system. The OSDL is planning to release
two enhanced versions of LINUX (Data
Center and
Carrier-Grade) sometime in mid-2005.
Projects are currently underway to begin the integration of an OASIS
ebXML infrastructure component with the LINUX operating system for inclusion
into these releases.
The rapid acceptance of LINUX worldwide and especially in
high growth countries such as China, India and Japan, should fuel dramatic
growth in the ebXML infrastructure as these enhanced LINUX versions become
available. LINUX is in many ways the perfect vehicle for ebXML and the
availability of ebXML enhanced LINUX versions will ensure that ebXML becomes
a critical component in global electronic commerce.
Central to this ebXML approach is a set of federated
electronic Registry services. This
allows partners to discover each other and more importantly to store central
definitions and the components that are needed to configure the interchange
between them. These can then also be
catalogued and shared across an industry community. Just as with file sharing peer-to-peer
networks there has to be central nodes that coordinate and facilitate each
member’s activities and in ebXML the registry performs that role.
Aligned with registry services is the ability to define
business partner profiles for business process participation. In ebXML parlance these are known as the
CPA – Collaboration Profile Agreement
and CPP – Collaboration Protocol
Profile. These profiles then
establish the formal business exchanges between participants. The CPP’s are combined together to create
CPAs that document the formal agreement details of the business processes.
The next requirement is to provide secure and reliable
communications across the Internet itself.
For ebXML a special XML-based messaging transport system based on using
the XML SOAP server foundation was developed.
This is known as ebMS (ebXML
Messaging Service) and is universally the most common component used by
implementers of ebXML. The ebMS server
has now evolved into a sophisticated integration component (see figure 1
below) that not only exchanges messages but also checks trading partner
profiles to ensure that the exchanges conform to the business agreements and
are being routed accordingly. In the
latest version it can also perform business rule checking services and
interact with web service based components that conform to the ebXML exchange
requirements.
Put together these components today are being used to
deploy a variety of business solutions.
Examples include supply of spare parts and maintenance support for the
Metro Rail in Hong Kong; Banking and Insurance services in Korea; in
Australia the Electricity and Gas supply in Sydney and small farmers selling
wheat to cooperatives; raw steel distribution in Europe’s 24x7 steel
marketplace; the US DOD EMALL for logistics parts purchase; State of Texas
electricity distribution marketplace; and Volkswagen is working on using
ebXML to cut costs to its dealerships and suppliers worldwide. These examples illustrate the range from
small to large configurations.
Next we look at how specifically ebXML is being used in
these environments.
The Classic ebXML model
This then forms the basis for what we can call ‘classic
ebXML’, ebMS with CPAs controlling transaction exchange based processes
between partners. While there is some
limited involvement of Registry services in certain deployments the majority
of implementations are done without using a formal Registry, instead websites
perform the role of registry facilitation.
The classic ebXML approach has proved its worth by also being the
basis of a formal certification program for ebMS implementations. UCCNet provides this certification in
cooperation with the eBusinessReady.org service. Now customers are able to
purchase solutions that are guaranteed to be interoperable with each
other. This is a critical advantage
that ebXML has today.
Figure 1 – classic ebXML deployment components
Using this classic ebXML model implementers create
two-player business exchanges. An
archetypal exchange is that of purchase orders, shipping notices and invoices
between a buyer and a seller. In figure 2 below we see the activity model for
such a Requester / Responder configuration that is supported using the
classic ebXML components.
The individual main steps are ‘Create Order’ and ‘Order
Fulfillment’, along with the business transactions that enable those. There is an initiating request from the
requester partner, and then the responder replies with a selection of
transactions depending on the business state of the interaction, either
rejecting or confirming the order accordingly.
The ‘join’ indicates that the process will only proceed
when both an order confirmation and a ship delivery notice have been
received. The ‘fork’ allows more than
one action depending on a condition.
In this case either a payment notice has to be created or not, based
on the requirement of the particular supplier’s application system (if it can
reconcile electronic payments, or requires information to be able to reconcile
them).
Figure 2 – classic ebXML Requester / Responder
business activity model
Figure 2 here shows various steps and business transaction
exchanges involved in completing the sample purchase, delivery and payment
for goods.
Advocates of web services have borrowed from this classic
ebXML model with some important and critical differences. Web services are not based around formal
business transaction exchanges but just fragments of information within an
XML instance and instead of the formal CPA business agreements; they use WSDL
(Web Service Description Language) scripts that are a programming device for
describing the connections and software services, but not the business
function. The failure and success guard
conditions are not formally defined for a WSDL based exchange. Also web
services are intended to perform in real-time as instant interaction points,
whereas ebXML messaging can also exploit a batch operating mode with
persistent and guaranteed authenticated message delivery. Instant interaction is also a tougher
environment to manage, often exposing implementers to higher risks of
exploitation through unscrupulous users of the Internet itself.
Delivering Enhanced ebXML
So far we have looked at ebXML being used in traditional
environments where the interactions follow the same patterns validated by EDI
systems for over twenty years. However
the next level of integration reaches out to a wider world that is being
created by advances in technology including mobile computing, wireless networking,
and global communications combined with Internet-based marketplaces. This world creates complex multi-faceted
multi-layered interactions between partners and services, including both
traditional services and web services (such as credit validation, stock price
lookup, and airline seat availability and so on). These multi-step processes cannot be
modelled using just a simple request/response interaction paradigm alone.
Bringing the world of classic ebXML together with the web
service instant interaction model is the challenge facing the industry
today. Fortunately ebXML began the
process of providing the necessary components in its initial foundation
work. We will now look how this is
coming into the forefront of enabling these next generation systems.
In order to formalize the interaction between partners
ebXML also developed a Business Process Specification Schema - BPSS
component. This works in tandem with
the ebMS and CPA by capturing the specific steps needed to complete a whole
interaction between many participants.
Classic ebXML finesses this in implementations today by using a common
binary requester / responder model that works for most simple exchange
patterns in business involving two parties, or that can be modelled as sets
of such ‘two-player’ exchanges. Now
however BPSS V2 is available and this is set to alter the whole landscape of
business process engineering by providing the means to model and deploy
sophisticated reliable and robust exchanges between multiple parties, not
just limited to two.
This ‘enhanced ebXML’ provides the means to completely
define a true Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) solution, including not
just ebXML but also web service components in a holistic way. Figure 3 shows a deployment of this
enhanced ebXML today.
Figure 3 – enhanced ebXML for SOA solutions
To support enhanced ebXML the new BPSS V2 provides key
functionality that is once again groundbreaking for e-Business via the
Internet. The first change allows
roles and steps to be defined for multiple participants along with process
forks and joins and thus extends the original ‘two-player’ ebXML exchanges to
include extended interactions between many partners. But instead of this being more confusing
spaghetti of complex flows, the BPSS approach forces constrained
deterministic business process steps to be defined between participants with
single entry and exit points. The
activity diagram in Figure 4 below shows how this works. This is crucial for
defining real usable and enforceable business agreements. Now industry groups have the means to
define exchanges for their members that can be re-usable and stable.
However building such exchange models in the past has been
difficult because of the need to support local customization and
variables. Again BPSS V2 provides the
answer through managing context across the whole business process by
participant (item #4 in figure 3 above).
This allows local conditions to be resolved and special requirements
to be integrated seamlessly. Local
players in a marketplace can individually configure their own special context
requirements and tie those to their role and exchanges.
The third piece that BPSS V2 adds is the ability to
integrate into the application layer provided by existing business
application systems. By providing
context in a formal XML-based way – the BPSS can pass that context to the
underlying integration systems. In
addition logical business transaction handling can be mapping to physical
integration services directly using the document definitions that BPSS
provides. OASIS has also developed an
open source solution to even further expedite this called the OASIS Content
Assembly Mechanism (CAM) that uses simple XML-based scripts to document the
business rules needed (item #5 in figure 3 above). Simply put these give participants the
ability to pre-packaged information integration scripts in XML and then share
those. This greatly enhances the
consistent information flow between partners systems.
Put together this allows business users to now use the
Registry services to fully document their end-to-end exchanges using XML
structures as a coherent package. A
typical such package can contain CPA, BPSS and CAM
definitions along with traditional ubiquitous XML tools such as transaction
schemas defined in either XSD or DTD syntax.
By sharing such a package across an industry this allows partners to
quickly configure their own ebXML systems and begin doing business, rather
than having to endure a long and costly setup.
To accommodate web service based interactions, BPSS V2
also provides an ability to include WSDL-based steps into a BPSS model (item
#9 in figure 3 above). These use a
limited interaction model that provides the means to control and manage those
steps using the ebXML approach. This
does not include all web services, but only this discreet set of formally
structured web service interactions.
The key is to provide a deterministic and known business
implementation where all end-conditions are known in advance.
Put together this enhanced ebXML provides the most
complete e-Business services environment available today. BPSS sits at heart of the components and
conducts the orchestra of components.
Providing business context, transaction integration, process
management, partner role details and deterministic transport messaging
delivery flows.
Using this model figure 4 shows a complex multiparty
interaction and how the components and participants interact together.
Figure 4 – Multi-party business collaboration using
ebXML
Figure 4 includes a multi-step interaction sample exchange
between participants in an automotive industry supply-chain marketplace. Included in the diagram is the car
dealership that is requesting a part supply, the manufacturer (General
Motors) then querying their partners (Eaton, MetalDyne) and the automotive
marketplace (Covisint). After
consolidating the replies on parts available and price, they then notify the
dealer who then confirms the order.
The ship notices from the delivery carrier are then forwarded to the
dealership. Being able to manage such
as complex interaction, and allow each participant to configure their own
profiles and business context parameters, along with message details (EDI or
XML) is what the new enhanced ebXML systems are capable of directing. For more details on how to model all the
aspects of the multi-party interaction, that enhance and compliment the
activity diagram shown in figure 4, see the BPSS tutorial available online
from the BPSS resource sites noted below.
Summary
Enhanced ebXML provides a timely and important next step
for ebXML deployments worldwide. This
coming year will see increasingly sophisticated usage of the ebXML solution
stack of components meeting the expanding demand for reliable and proven
e-Business solutions based on open public standards.
Beyond today’s enhanced ebXML there are many more
interesting aspects being worked on for ebXML that will be available in the
future. Included in this is the
integration of semantic web capabilities into ebXML Registry and ability to
define core component libraries and vocabularies of business nouns. These tools will allow whole industries to
deploy common foundation services based on coherent semantics.
Also important is the front-office facing development
being done to provide a uniform e-Service infrastructure for citizen and
customer facing applications. This
work is based on the original Electronic Process (EPR) project funded in Europe (see http://eprforum.org
) and is using the ebXML infrastructure to provide the linkage to the
back-office systems. Related to this
is the Business-Centric Methodology (BCM) work of OASIS that is seeking to
provide catalogues of proven templates for business users to be able to adapt
and exploit ebXML-based systems (see http://businesscentricmethodology.com
and OASIS).
There are many more challenges ahead for the development
of e-Business systems including the need to integrate RFID and Wireless
mobile device based solutions but today we see that ebXML is evolving to meet
these challenges. This development is
not based on simply bolting-on technology however. Any new additions to ebXML are founded on
the core concepts that are the strength of ebXML. The need is to provide secure, reliable,
predictable and robust real business mechanisms and agreements that can meet
the rigorous needs of business today.
Authors and Contributors:
David RR Webber, Mark Yader, John Hardin, and Patrick
Hogan
Resources and Terms
Latest news on global ebXML developments – http://www.ebXMLforum.org
Reference site to classic ebXML – http://www.ebxml.org
List of available ebXML tools – http://www.ebxml.org/tools/
List of example ebXML implementations – http://www.ebxml.org/implementations/
Annual compendium of ebXML adoptions worldwide – http://
Book reference – Executive Introduction to ebXML – http://www.ebxmlbook.com
Developers’ resource site – http://www.ebxmldev.org
Open source implementations of ebXML – http://www.freebXML.org
Linux Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) and ebXML – http://www.osdl.org
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