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B2B E-Commerce to Benefit from International Efforts Toward Standardization
By
April 6, 2001

By Mark S. Merkow, CCP, CISSP

This spring has ushered in a new set of specifications for the Electronic Business Extensible Markup Language (ebXML), developed to enable a modular approach to a complete electronic B2B framework.

EbXML is a joint initiative of the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). ebXML was developed through participation of over 3,000 people from 75 member companies, spanning 30 countries. As such, ebXML is global in support, scope, and implementation. Contributions and leadership from industry giants IBM, Sun Microsystems, and Microsoft Corp. have brought about significant improvements to the draft ebXML specifications. It has since captured the attention of the B2B e-commerce marketplace and shows tremendous promise in finally meeting business needs. Version 1.0 of the ebXML pledges support for the Microsoft-backed Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) transport sequence, enabling simplified and reliable transfers of information between business users.

The ebXML architecture is designed as:

  1. A way to define business processes and their associated messages and content.
  2. A way to register and discover business process sequences with related message exchanges.
  3. A way to define company profiles.
  4. A way to define trading partner agreements.
  5. A uniform message transport layer.

Because it's modular, businesses can begin developing application software using any parts of the specification sets individually or in combination with other parts of the system. The complete set of ebXML specifications are planned for May 2001 finalization, but the core specifications for the Messaging Service, Registry and Repository, and Collaborative Partner Agreement are ready for developers today.

Once it's complete, the major ebXML technical specifications will include:

  • Technical Architecture Specification as an overview of the ebXML infrastructure and itemizes the design rules and guidelines,
  • Repository and Registry Specification, which includes functional specifications, technical design, interfaces, and services,
  • Transport, Routing, and Packaging Specification addresses the transport of ebXML messages, the means for security of messages, and the physical construction of messages, including:
    • Message structures
    • Message headers
    • Textual API examples
    • Choreographic of messages
    • Security specifications
  • Business Process Modeling Specification as a metamodel and recommended methodology to implement the models
  • Core Components Specification as the set of core components and recommended methodology to derive them

ebXML is rooted in public Internet standards and technologies that renders it simple and inexpensive to implement, as well as vendor, platform, and programming language neutral. Some of these public standards include:

  • HTTP
  • TCP/IP
  • MIME
  • SMTP
  • FTP
  • UML
  • XML

Conducting e-business with ebXML is a four-step process, described as follows:

  1. Design and register business processes in information models -Implementors browse the ebXML repository for business processes they need to support or for business processes their intended trading partners are already registered to support
  2. Implement business services interfaces and register Collaborative Partner Profiles in the registry
    -  Implementors can buy, build, or configure existing applications to support the discrete business processes and services
    - Implementors can then register their capability to participate through a Collaborative Partner Profile
  3. Negotiate and define Collaborative Partner Agreements (CPAs) - optional
    -  Trading partners can negotiate technical details in the form of a CPA and then register the CPA in the ebXML registry
  4. Message exchange between partners
    -  Using the ebXML Messaging Service, trading partners can send and receive secure ebXML messages and documents using a reliable transport service
Conducting e-business with ebXML

The ebXML approach

You can obtain a copy of the ebXML specifications for business requirements and technical architecture specification from the Web site

As ebXML continues to address the shortcomings and lack of acceptance for the legions of other XML-based B2B E-commerce solutions, we'll likely begin seeing ebXML integrated into the more popular commercial trading software for B2B systems. Before the May 2001 final approval phase for ebXML, you still have a chance to comment on the specifications and even contribute further improvements. Visit their Web site and see what you think.