Intro to eBusiness with XML (ebXML)
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The use of electronic messaging for business transactions such as invoices, purchase orders and shipment notices between business partners is the domain of the ebXML technology work [known as eBusiness XML, or ebXML (pronounced ee-bee-ex-em-el)].
Introduction
The ebXML specification is recognized worldwide as a set of tools for establishing electronic business interactions. The ebXML specification shows companies of any size, including government and not-for-profit organizations, how to establish business processes, locate trading partners, exchange messages, translate among terminology used in different industries, and integrate the transactions with their current data-exchange protocols.
The ebXML work has been translated from English into French, Japanese and Chinese.
The ebXML Initiative (electronic business XML) was started as a joint collaboration between UN/CEFACT and OASIS. There are now a suite of ISO specifications for ebXML - ISO 15000 series.
The ebXML initative has been ground breaking in many respects. It was the first international collaboration to develop open public standards for electronic business and transcended the then static and immensely slow multi-year standards process by innovating around the use of email and internet resources to facilitate the development teams. This was combined with traditional face-to-face trimester meetings organized on the UN/CEFACT model for meetings. The result was that the original ebXML work was developed in just 18 months from inception to publication - on May 11th, 2001 in Vienna, Austria.
Over 2,000 organizations participated in the original ebXML work and as such it represents one of the largest technology collaboration projects ever conceived and implemented.
Following on from the mere challenge of developing such technical specifications - ebXML was also ground breaking in its promotion of W3C XML syntax to replace the traditional EDI-based mechanisms for conducting electronic business. At the time there was much controversy over the applicablity and practicality of that decision in itself.
In many ways ebXML demonstrated that practicality and functionality at the height of the .COM era and aggressive commercialization of internet for eCommerce related solutions to traditional bricks-and-mortar business interactions.
The ebXML community has now evolved over 5 years and development of the formal specifications has continued within both OASIS and UN/CEFACT technical communities. The ebXML work has been adopted by many governments internationally and also trade associations and business communities worldwide.
History - the original ebXML work and concepts.
The ebXML work stemmed from earlier work on OO-edi (object oriented EDI), UML / UMM, XML markup technologies and the X12 EDI "Future Vision" work sponsored by ANSI X12 EDI.
The melding of these components began in the original ebXML work and the theoretical discussion continues today. Other work relates, such as the OMG work and the OASIS BCM (Business-Centric Methodology) standard (2006).
The original ebXML specifications are a family of XML based standards sponsored by OASIS and UN/CEFACT whose mission is to provide an open, XML-based infrastructure that enables the global use of electronic business information in an interoperable, secure and consistent manner by all trading partners.
The ebXML work commenced in 1999 as an 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). The original project envisioned five layers of data specification, including XML standards for:
- Business processes,
- Collaboration protocol agreements,
- Core data components,
- Messaging, &
- Registries and repositories
While ebXML was not originally itself a standard, rather, it was a container for several key specification standards administered by UN/CEFACT and OASIS. Key ebXML standards include ebXML Messaging Services, ebXML Registry, ebXML Business Process Specification Schema and ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has approved the following five ebXML specifications as the ISO 15000 standard, under the general title, Electronic business eXtensible markup language:
- ISO 15000-1: ebXML Collaborative Partner Profile Agreement
- ISO 15000-2: ebXML Messaging Service Specification
- ISO 15000-3: ebXML Registry Information Model
- ISO 15000-4: ebXML Registry Services Specification
- ISO 15000-5: ebXML Core Components Technical Specification
OASIS technical committees and UN/CEFACT retain the responsibility for maintaining and advancing the above specifications.
The freebXML.org initiative was established to promote development and adoption of ebXML-based open-source software.
Conceptual overview of ebXML architecture
While the ebXML standards adopted by ISO and OASIS seek to provide formal XML enabled mechanisms that can be implemented directly - the ebXML architecture is focused on concepts and methodologies that can be more broadly applied to allow practitioners to better implement eBusiness solutions.
A particular instance is the Core Components Technical Specification (CCTS) work that continues within UN/CEFACT, whereas its cousin - UBL - Universal Business Language - specification is work with OASIS that implements specific XML transactions based on the applying the principles of CCTS to typical supply chain transactions such as invoice, purchase order, ship notice and so on.