InformationWeek

ome observers have questioned whether ebXML and the UDDI initiative are trying to solve the same problems, but they're likely to end up as complementary solutions in E-business systems.

The Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration project was initiated by Ariba, IBM, and Microsoft to create a standard registry for companies to make their Web services known over the Internet. UDDI should help accelerate the integration of systems used in marketplaces, while ebXML aims to standardize how XML is used in general business integration.

The UDDI model focuses on middleware connectivity, using XML to describe the systems that companies use to interact with one another. UDDI stores information about companies' integration profiles and capabilities in a shared directory that other companies can access via a set of XML standards.

The UDDI registry system contains three types of information, referred to as the white, yellow, and green pages. White pages let companies register their names and the key services they provide and let other companies search the directory by company name. Yellow pages will categorize companies according to U.S. government and United Nations standard industry codes, and by geographical location. Green pages let companies interact with other companies listed in the registry.

EbXML adopters could end up using UDDI as their default registry system.