Categories of Standards

Keep in mind there are many types of standards out there, but they have a tendency to fall into one of the following categories:

• Process-based

• Service-based

• Message-based

Process-based standards, such as ebXML and RosettaNet, approach trading communities by creating common processes that span enterprises. Typically these prebuilt processes determine how they carry out business activities, such as depleting inventory, logistics, order validation and verification, and so on.

The advantage of process-based standards is that they go well beyond simple information exchange (albeit they may still provide an information exchange infrastructure). They also provide a mechanism to define and drive a common process, as well as precanned processes that you don't have to create, just bind to internal processes (see Figure 14.1). Moreover, they typically provide common metadata and information exchange infrastructures.

Figure 14.1. Using process-based standards.

Service-based standards, as you may have guessed from the name, are standards that provide access to common services in support of a trading community. Web services-based standards, including BPEL4WS, fall into this category, providing access to common services in support of e-Business. For example, a Web service that is globally accessible calculates shipping costs and applicable taxes for sending goods overseas.

The advantage of service-based standards is that we share not only common processes, but also real application services that span multiple companies. There are many other places in this book where we make the case for sharable services. The disadvantage is that services have a tendency to be more invasive, and it's difficult to get other organizations inside a trading community to alter their systems to expose services. To this end, it may be a better choice to leverage a Web services network and centralized server that host Web services for access to many entities. Thus the services do not have to exist in just one enterprise, and they are more accessible and considered neutral.

Message-based standards focus on the exchange of information between organizations. The notion is to define a common message (sometimes an XML document) and leverage that to define how these trading partners communicate. EDI is an example of a message-based standard, providing a common, universally understood format for exchanging order and payment information. However, message-based standards are also a part of more sophisticated enabling standards such as ebXML.

The advantage of message-based standards is the ease of implementation due to their sheer simplicity. Basically, all trading partners decide to leverage a message-based standard, and then begin exchanging information. The disadvantage is that message-based standards don't address important aspects of supply chain integration, including common processes.