InformationWeek

bXML, the United Nations-backed standard for E-business, aims to create a single online marketplace where companies of any size or nationality can collaborate and conduct business around the globe. By creating a standard way for companies to carry out common business practices, ebXML promoters hope to lower entry barriers and let small and midsize companies from the far corners of the globe join in the economic advances that their larger brethren already enjoy.

It's ironic that this grassroots effort had its genesis in NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization--a pan-governmental bureaucracy. But the initiative seems to be resonating around the world, with supporters ranging from IBM and Sun Microsystems to government agencies such as the Saudi Export Development Corp. and small businesses like Martin's Famous Pastry Shoppe.

The goal of ebXML--being undertaken by about 1,000 participating organizations--is to create a set of standards that will let companies use XML for E-business. The underlying tenet of ebXML is business workflow and common business processes that every business should be able to understand and use.

You could think of ebXML as the successor to electronic data interchange. Where EDI delineated standard E-business documents such as purchase orders, ebXML specifies common business processes and an architecture for carrying out those processes over the Internet.

EbXML is being spearheaded by the United Nations Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, as well as the Economic Commission for Europe's Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business.

EbXML is nearing the end of its planned 18-month gestation period this month, with the publication of a complete set of specifications for using XML as the communication format for global business.

The fate of ebXML after May is still undecided, but if the roster of computer vendors and consulting companies participating in the work is any indication, ebXML is likely to make its way into software and service offerings during the coming months.

The organizations participating in the development of ebXML have thus far been careful to avoid discussing implementation plans, in the spirit of its open-source nature. But with IBM, Oracle, and Sun as major participants, there will certainly be a push for commercialization.

The purpose of the ebXML initiative is to research and identify the technical basis on which the global implementation of XML can be standardized. EbXML will provide an XML-based open framework for the exchange of E-business data.

A key aspect for the success of the ebXML initiative is adherence, as much as possible, to the World Wide Web Consortium's suite of XML and related Web specifications. The various ebXML working groups were given the mandate to use existing standards and avoid reinventing existing technologies.

The initial release of ebXML will consist of the specifications listed in the chart. Collectively, they describe a system with several key parts that is fully compliant with the W3C XML technical specification.

EbXML provides interoperability within and between ebXML-compliant trading-partner applications and maximizes efficiency. At the same time, the standards provide a transition path from EDI standards and puts forth a set of XML business-process standards.

The draft ebXML architecture specifications describe a complex infrastructure for interactions between trading partners and a repository of XML documents from which business processes can be modeled.

The architecture provides:

• A way to define business processes and their associated messages and content;
• A way to register and discover business process sequences with related message exchanges;
• A way to define company profiles;
• A way to define trading-partner agreements;
• A uniform message transport mechanism.

The ebXML working groups have identified a number of processes that are necessary for conducting E-business. First is a discovery process, where companies find each other and the products and services they offer. They must then determine which shared business processes, and associated document exchanges, might be used for obtaining products or services from each other. They must then negotiate the contact points and form of communication for the exchange of information and agree on the contractual terms for the chosen processes and associated information.

Finally, they must be able to exchange information and services in an automated fashion in accordance with these agreements. EbXML is designed to automate these steps as much as possible.

Such an ambitious goal requires a substantial infrastructure. The architecture group is working on technologies such as a standard message-transport mechanism with a well-defined interface, packaging rules, and a predictable delivery and security model.

In late February the group revealed its intention to use the Simple Object Access Protocol for the messaging mechanism. Microsoft and IBM, two of Soap's authors, have said that they're willing to permit use of their respective patents related to Soap.

The ebXML Messaging Service specification defines the set of services and protocols that lets E-business applications exchange data. It allows for the use of any application-level protocol, including common protocols such as Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, HTTP, and File Transfer Protocol, as well as cryptographic techniques, to implement strong security. Secure proto-cols such as HTTPS can be used to guarantee confidentiality, and digital signatures can be applied to individual messages or a group of related messages to guarantee authenticity.

But the architecture goes beyond just the messaging technology used and specifies a semantic framework to ensure commercial interoperability. This will form the language of the communication to provide a metamodel for defining business processes and information models based on the Uniform Modeling Language.

Another important element is a set of reusable business logic based on core components that reflect common business processes and XML vocabularies. This is probably the most ambitious part of ebXML and the biggest risk to its success.

It's difficult enough to define these core components for a custom application used by a single company. Doing this for many international businesses will be orders of magnitude more complex.

But if the many talented individuals working on the problem succeed at distilling such core components and putting them in a central repository, it will form a powerful foundation for assembling custom interactions among trading partners.

The ebXML methodology for the discovery and analysis of core components specification describes how a company can identify data in an ebXML registry. It describes the steps for finding business-process libraries of components and examples of information interchange.