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The ebXML registry: want to perform B2B transactions? This registry will help.

Article Excerpt
THE ELECTRONIC BUSINESS EXTENSIBLE MARKUP LANGUAGE, BETTER KNOWN AS EBXML, AIMS COMPANIES OF ANY SIZE TO CONDUCT ELECTRONICALLY VIA THE INTERNET. OBVIOUSLY, COMPANIES DOING BUSINESS TOGETHER ISN'T A NEW IDEA. EDI (ELECTRONIC DATA INTERCHANGE) HAS BEEN USED BETWEEN LARGE BUSINESSES TO CONDUCT ELECTRONIC BUSINESS SINCE THE 1960S. HOWEVER, EDI OFTEN REQUIRES THE IMPLEMENTATION OF CUSTOM PROTOCOLS AND PROPRIETARY MESSAGE FORMATS BETWEEN THE INDIVIDUAL COMPANIES.

Because of this, its use has been restricted to larger corporations that can absorb the initial costs required to do business in this fashion. The goal of ebXML is to provide a flexible, open infrastructure that will let companies of any size, anywhere in the world, do business together.

The ebXML effort is jointly sponsored by the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) and OASIS, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, along with approximately 30 other industry leaders. UN/CEFACT is also the standards body behind EDIFACT, an EDI standard used heavily throughout Europe and the Pacific Rim.

The ebXML group has delivered three key components of a next-generation B2B infrastructure:

* An XML messaging specification

* A trading partners agreement specification

* A registry/repository specification

A second initiative at OASIS has begun to create a Universal Business Language (UBL), essentially a standard set of XML business documents to be used for B2B transactions. UBL is based on xCBL 3.0, which is freely available and widely deployed.

In this article we'll explore the ebXML Registry/Repository, one of the cornerstone components of the ebXML architecture.

What Is the ebXML Registry?

The ebXML Registry serves as a central repository that enables businesses to share information. The ebXML Registry Services specification defines it as "a set of services that enable sharing of information between interested parties for the purpose of enabling business process integration between such parties based on the ebXML specifications." So, in addition to being a directory of content, it's a storage mechanism. Essentially, it's a place where people can locate, store, and retrieve objects with the intention of performing B2B transactions. Figure 1 illustrates the role of the registry in a typical B2B scenario.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

What types of objects does the registry handle? Actually, the Registry Information Model (RIM) is described in its entirety in another specification (see Resources section). At its core are two key objects: the RegistryEntry and the ClassificationNode.

The RegistryEntry object is meant to contain an ebXML-specified object. For example, a Collaboration Protocol Profile (CPP), a Collaboration Protocol Agreement (CPA), a UBL document, or even a software component could be held within a RegistryEntry.

ClassificationNodes are used to create tree structures that are then used to define Classification schemes or ontologies. Most of the other registry objects are associated with one or more RegistryEntries and are described in Table 1.

Classifications

Before we discuss how to interact with an ebXML Registry, it's probably worthwhile to discuss the concept of Classifications. In an ebXML Registry...

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