| The initiative elaborated on the technical goal statement with several principles to guide its development work. Under those principles, the ebXML specifications should do all of the following: -
Make electronic business simple, easy, and ubiquitous. -
Use XML to the fullest extent possible. -
Offer an open standard that enables business transactions across industry boundaries for both business-to-business and business-to-consumer commerce. -
Bring together the structure and content of various XML business vocabularies into a single specification. -
Offer a migration path from current EDI standards, as well as XML vocabularies. -
Encourage industry efforts with immediate or short-term objectives to come together under a common long- term goal. -
Avoid solutions requiring end users to invest in proprietary software or impose constraints requiring specialized systems to conduct e-business with ebXML. -
Keep adoption costs to a minimum. -
Support multiple written languages and accommodate common rules of national and international trade. -
Apply the business requirements of the Ad Hoc Working Group on SIMPL-EDI, Forms, and Web-based EDI (SIMAC) whenever possible.[6] The SIMAC group proposed SIMPL-EDI (the spelling is intentional) as a way of making EDI easier and less expensive for smaller businesses. The group suggested that if business processes were simplified, EDI itself could be made simpler. SIMAC also proposed messages or transactions consisting of only a core set of data, rather than defining every piece of data exchanged between trading partners. SIMPL-EDI assumes that application-to-application exchanges can occur without human intervention. It also assumes that trading partners can reference common databases, such as product numbers and descriptions, rather than exchanging the data themselves .[7] In addition to these principles, the requirements provide a list of general specifications for business solutions that ebXML should address. They include many of the principles listed earlier, as well as other important features: -
A process for determining compliance with ebXML, with design rules for developing messages compliant with ebXML specifications and W3C requirements for XML. -
Support for vertical solutions ”those based on specific industries or companies ”as well as solutions that address business functions that cut across industry or company boundaries. -
Ability to implement simple, low-cost solutions for smaller businesses, but still enable full-featured solutions if needed by larger enterprises . -
Allow for a range of implementations , from a subset of core features in ad hoc exchanges to highly structured interactions. -
Provide a consistent business process modeling language and methodology, including a metamodel ”literally, a model of models ”that allows for the development of individual business process models. -
Support current business processes and practices, yet still allow for new business processes developed through modeling methodologies. -
Enable a series of core components in a neutral syntax, to allow for mapping to previous messages and technologies. -
Support industry XML schemas with elements and tags that support the industry's business processes, as well as capturing the full semantics of an industry's vocabulary. -
Offer fully interoperable messages with specifications for packaging, transport, and routing. -
Meet security needs of businesses, especially confidentiality. The requirements include a special note on the need to reduce costs, not only as a company's bottom-line strategy but to help gain competitive advantage. The cost of e-business adoption that a company can incur include everything from the initial development of e-business systems, through installation and integration with other business systems, as well as ongoing operations and support. One of the key objectives of XML is lowering the cost of exchanging business data, and clearly success will be measured on how well ebXML can deliver on this promise.[8] |
