Starting a Company s ebXML Operations

Starting a Company's ebXML Operations

A company needs to follow three phases to go from beginning to operational with ebXML. An implementation phase creates or acquires the basic ebXML-compliant systems. A discovery-retrieval phase learns the capabilities of trading partners . A runtime phase covers the exchange of ebXML messages. We expect that industry groups or enterprising companies will provide services to make some or all of these steps transparent to companies, but in one way or another they need to get done.

Implementation Phase

This first phase covers the initial startup of a company with ebXML, to build or acquire the applications for dealing with the ebXML specifications. In most cases, companies will be able to acquire stand-alone ebXML software, upgrade their current applications with off-the-shelf ebXML components , or use a web-based service, such as an application service provider. If the company needs to build its own systems, it will then need to acquire the official ebXML technical specifications.[76] These specifications, with supporting technical reports , are listed in Appendix B, "References," and downloadable free of charge from the ebXML web site (www.ebxml.org).

If the systems need to first reference an industry's business process specifications, a company can download the specifications from the appropriate registry. The business process specifications include process models in UML or a comparable language, or XML specifications in the form of a document type definition (DTD) or schema. These business processes either describe or provide the message sequences and data elements needed to do business with other companies in that industry.

The industry's specifications should identify which of the data elements in the messages are equivalent to the ebXML core components, and which are specific to the industry domain. Industry organizations that have defined EDI transactions should relate the items in these earlier EDI messages or transaction sets to the ebXML core components, in order to promote interoperability between EDI and ebXML. The work of X12 and the UN/EDIFACT Work Group to relate their EDI standards to the ebXML core components will help in this effort.[77]

Where an industry may not yet have developed industry-wide processes or messages, companies may need to develop their own processes and messages, and register them with the appropriate registries. Under these conditions, companies will need to work with individual company processes and messages rather than those defined for whole industries.[78]

If companies need to acquire these specifications, they will need software to access and interact with ebXML registries, which in turn will need the capability to generate and process ebXML messages.

Discovery and Retrieval Phase

Once the company has either acquired or developed a system with a business service interface as discussed earlier in this chapter (refer to Figure 8.6), it can begin interacting with ebXML registries to list its own readiness and find trading partners with the capabilities to do electronic business.

In this phase, companies register their own collaboration protocol profiles (CPPs) and download CPPs of potential trading partners from ebXML registries. These profiles provide the technical capabilities of trading partners, including the process and messages they support, and become the basis for collaboration protocol agreements (CPAs) between companies. As a result, companies need to keep their CPPs up to date in all of the registries where they are listed.[79]

Runtime Phase

This phase covers the exchange of messages or provision of web services through ebXML. In the first two phases, companies deal with ebXML registries, but in this phase they deal mainly with each other.

The first set of exchanges should establish a CPA between the companies, which will govern further interactions. The CPA is based in part on the CPPs, subject to further negotiations and agreement. Once the CPA is in place, companies can begin exchanging ebXML-compliant messages.[80]

Eventually, end- user software with easy point-and-click screens will handle many of the functions for getting started with ebXML, but at the time of this writing those sofware products were still in the experimental stage. ebXML pioneers will probably use general-purpose XML document editors or even plain- vanilla text editors to write their CPPs and CPAs.

The idea of "trading partner" here can mean more than individual companies. Companies implementing ebXML can include web-based application service providers, exchanges, or clearinghouses providing some of the functionality usually assigned to end-user software. These web-based service companies can make it possible for companies to use less sophisticated and thus less expensive software. For example, if a company doesn't plan to change trading partners frequently, it could use a third-party service to establish a CPA with a trading partner rather than pay for those functions in an end-user package.