ebXML: Global Standard for Electronic Business? (2/2) - exploring XML

ebXML: Global Standard for Electronic Business?

Collaboration Protocol Profile

The profile is defined using the ebXML Specification Schema and is a concrete specification of your ebusiness offerings, that is the business scenarios you support, the service interfaces you implement, as well as document formats exchanged and technical requirements and options for protocols, security, and reliability. The profile is composed of business process models, information models, and context rules.

Standard business scenarios remove the need for prior agreements among trading partners, and. are often defined by Industry Groups. Scenarios include Business Process Models that define interactions between parties, the sequencing of interactions, and the documents exchanged in each interaction. The Information Model defines the documents, and the industry-specific context in which the transactions take place.

Agreement negotiation

After you find a registry and search for partners you examine their CPPs in order to ascertain compatibility of the business process and technical specifications. You stipulate your "rules of engagement" and produce a Collaboration Protocol Agreement, outlining the conditions under which two partners will conduct business transactions together.

The agreement for business interaction between two parties contains technical specifications, in the form of message service requirements and application requirements, and references CPPs and legal terms and conditions. Subsequently a business service interface implements the CPA, and enables one party to converse with the other party using the ebXML Message Service.

Message Service

A reliable, secure XML messaging service is required to enforces the rules of engagement in the CPA. The message service is defined transport independent and extends SOAP messages with attachments. This way it addresses topics beyond SOAP, namely reliability, security, and delivery options.

Conclusion

Worldwide electronic business is a puzzle with many pieces. While the ebXML pieces are at various stages of definition and implementation, the blueprint around them sets the stage for how business transactions will be structured on a world-wide basis. While the world seems to converge, Microsoft goes the other way with biztalk, so stay tuned for the next installment of this mini-series on business XML.

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Produced by Michael Claßen

URL: https://www.webreference.com/xml/column46/2.html
Created: Dec 24, 2001
Revised: Dec 24, 2001