Electronic Business: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (4-Volumes) P17 doc

• Business networking cluster: aiming at designing and developing reference models and technologies supporting organiza-tions and professionals, enhancing their collaboration and agility

• Business networking cluster: aiming at

designing and developing reference models

and technologies supporting

organiza-tions and professionals, enhancing their

collaboration and agility, and at fostering

the development of suitable VO breeding

environments; relevant research projects

in this area are: ECOLEAD (European

COLlaborative networked organizations

LEADership initiative, http://www.ecolead

org), CROSSWORK (Developing

Cross-2UJDQL]DWLRQDO :RUNÀRZ )RUPDWLRQ DQG

Enactment, http://www.crosswork.info),

VE-Forum (the European forum for virtual

organizations domains, http://www.ve-forum

org)

• Enterprise interoperability: aiming at

developing open and secure technologies to

connect system and enterprises Enterprise

interoperability is addressed at different

levels: physical integration, syntactic

ap-plication integration, semantic apap-plication

integration, business process integration,

inter-enterprise coordination ATHENA

(Advanced Technologies for interoperability

of Heterogeneous Enterprise Networks and

their Applications, http://www.athena-ip.org) and INTEROP (Interoperability Research for Networked Enterprises Applications and Software, http://www.interop-noe.org) are relevant research projects in this area

• The ambient intelligence technologies for the product life-cycle cluster: aiming at

enabling organizations, in a networked busi-ness environment, to deliver better products WRWKHPDUNHWLQDPRUHHI¿FLHQWZD\DQG faster, by enhancing the product and the product life-cycle processes using ambient intelligence technologies; CO-DESNET (Collaborative Demand and Supply NET-works, http://codesnet.polito.it) is a relevant research project in this area

• Digital ecosystems: aiming at providing to

small and micro-systems ICT applications DQGVHUYLFHVZKLFKLPSURYHWKHLUHI¿FLHQF\ and business integration within EU regions; SATINE (Semantic-based Interoperability Infrastructure for Integrating Web Service Platforms to Peer-to-Peer Networks, http:// www.srdc.metu.edu.tr) is a relevant project in this area

Figure 1 EU targeted research clusters for enterprise networking (Adapted after VE-Forum http://www fe-forum.org —The European Research Clusters for Enterprise Networking)

Enterprise Interoperability Networking Business Ambient Intelligence Technologies for the

Product Life Cycle

Co DesNet ILIPT MAPPER PARADISE’ PROMISE Spider-Wiu V-CES VERITAS X-Change

CrossWork ECOLEAD Ist-Bonus Mosquito MyCarEvent MyTreasury XBRL in Europe

ATHENA No-Rest TrustCoM

DigitalEcosystems

DBE Legal-IST SATINE

VE-FORUM

Reference Models, Standards,

Frameworks, and Technologies

Supporting Enterprise Integration

and Interoperability

Several reference models, frameworks, and

stan-dards have been developed aiming at supporting

enterprise integration and interoperability This

section concisely presents some integration

refer-ence models, frameworks, and standards referring

to B2B domain, and relevant infrastructures and

technologies supporting enterprise integration and

interoperability According to Vernadat (1996), a

reference model represents a partial model, which

can be used as a basis for certain model

devel-RSPHQWVRUHYDOXDWLRQV7KHWHUP³IUDPHZRUN´

refers to a collection of elements (e.g., principles,

methods, tools) put together for a certain purpose,

and relevant for a given domain of application

Standards can be regarded as objects (e.g.,

hard-ware, software), which are accepted and shared

within a community (i.e., business unit, value

chain) (Crargill, 1989)

A Reference Models, Architectures,

and Frameworks

Purdue Enterprise Reference Architecture

(PERA) provides the reference model of physical

and informational interactions in enterprises (Li

& Williams, 2000) An extension of the model is

presented in Li and Williams (2003), which aims at

enhancing the functionality of PERA as reference

model for a distributed enterprises environment

(e.g., VE), where the business processes in a group

of enterprises are synchronously and

simultane-ously executed via information exchange

Generalized Enterprise Reference

Architec-ture and Methodology (GERAM) (IFAC/IFIP,

GH¿QHVDWRRONLWRIFRQFHSWVIRUGHVLJQLQJ

and maintaining enterprises for their entire life

history GERAM refers to the methods, models,

and tools, which are needed to build and maintain

the integrated enterprise, a single enterprise or

a network of enterprises GERAM encapsulates and orders previous architectures (e.g., CIMOSA, PERA, GRAI/GIM), providing an overall struc-ture to use those methods and modeling tech-niques GERAM is not a reference architecture;

it is aimed at organizing enterprises’ existing integration knowledge, and its framework has the potential for application to all types of enterprises

by describing the components needed in all en-terprises’ engineering and integration processes Generalized Enterprise Reference Architecture (GERA) is GERAM’s most important component ,WLGHQWL¿HVEDVLFFRQFHSWVWREHXVHGLQHQWHUSULVH engineering and integration

Supply chain operations reference model (SCOR) (http://www.supply-chain.org) is a process reference model developed by the Supply-Chain Council as a cross-industry standard for supply-chain management used to describe, measure, DQG HYDOXDWH VXSSO\FKDLQ FRQ¿JXUDWLRQV 7KH 6&25PRGHOLVRUJDQL]HGDURXQG¿YHSULPDU\ management processes: plan, source, make, de-liver, and return It is composed by a hierarchic architecture of four level details: top level (process W\SHVFRQ¿JXUDWLRQOHYHOSURFHVVFDWHJRULHV process element level (decompose processes), and implementation level (decompose process elements)

Zachman’s framework for enterprise architec-ture (Zachman, 1987) describes a holistic model

of an enterprise information infrastructure from six perspectives: planner, owner, designer, builder, subcontractor, and working system Its focus is to ensure that all aspects of an enterprise are well-organized and exhibit clear relationships that will ensure a complete system regardless of the order

in which they are established

:RUNÀRZUHIHUHQFHPRGHO:RUNÀRZ0DQ-agement Coalition, 1999) provides the general DUFKLWHFWXUDOIUDPHZRUNWKDWLGHQWL¿HVLQWHUIDFHV DQGFRYHUVEURDGO\¿YHDUHDVRIIXQFWLRQDOLW\EH-tween a ZRUNÀRZPDQDJHPHQWV\VWHP:I06 DQGLWVHQYLURQPHQWSURFHVVGH¿QLWLRQVLPSRUW and export; interaction with client applications

and work-list handler software; software tools or

applications invocation; interoperability between

different WfMSs; and administration and

moni-toring functions

B Business-to-Business Integration

Standards

In a broad sense, the term business-to-business

(B2B) integration refers to electronic message

ex-change among trading partners It includes issues

VXFKDVSURGXFWFDWDORJVFODVVL¿FDWLRQV\VWHPV

B2B protocol standards,

synchronous/asynchro-nous communication, or back-end integration

According to Bussler (2003), B2B integration is

the enabling technology and the necessary

in-frastructure to perform different operations: for

example, automated supply chain integration, to

send XML-formatted messages over the Internet,

or to send messages in a peer-to-peer (P2P)

pat-tern to trading partners

According to SWWS (2003), B2B standards’

scope can be roughly separated into catalogue and

FODVVL¿FDWLRQVWDQGDUGVGRFXPHQWH[FKDQJHFRO-laboration, and business processes, as follows:

• Catalogue systems and classification

standards include: BMEcat (http://www.

bmecat.org), eCX (Electronic Catalog

XML, http://www.ecx-xml.org), OCP (Open

Catalog Protocol, http://www.martsoft

com/ocp) as catalogue systems, and eCl@ss

(http://www.eclass-online.com) or UNSPSC

(United Nations Standard Products and

Services Code, http://www.unspsc.org) as

FODVVL¿FDWLRQVWDQGDUGV

• Document exchange comprises electronic

data interchange (EDI), electronic data

interchange for administration, commerce

and transport (EDIFACT), eXtensible

Markup Language (XML, http://www

xml.org), XML common business library

(xCBL, http://www.xcbl.org), Commerce

eXtensible Markup Language (cXML,

http://www.cxml.org), Open Applications

*URXS ,QWHJUDWLRQ 6SHFL¿FDWLRQ 2$*,6 http://www.openapplications.org), Roset-taNet implementation framework (RNIF, http://www.rosettanet.org), and Society For World-wide Interbank Financial Telecom-munications (SWIFT) standard modeling (http://www.swift.com)

• Collaboration includes Electronic

Busi-ness XML Initiative (ebXML, http://www ebxml.org), Universal Business Language (UBL, http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl), and RosettaNet (http://www.rosettanet.org)

• Business processes refer to executable

busi-ness processes, ebXML busibusi-ness collabo-rations (http://www.ebxml.org), business SURFHVVDFWLYLWLHVRUZRUNÀRZVBusiness Process Modeling Language (BPML)/ Business Process Query Language (BPQL), Web Services Flow Language (WSFL), Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS), XML Process-ing Description Language (XPDL), 8QL¿HG Modeling Language, (UML, http://www uml.org), and 3URFHVV 6SHFL¿FDWLRQ /DQ-guage (PSL, http://www.nist.gov.psl) are only some of the modeling languages dealing with business processes

Other relevant developments for enterprise in-tegration are: Open Buying on the Internet (OBI), Bolero.net, eCo framework, business transaction protocol (BTP), Transaction Authority Markup Language (XAML), and Microsoft BizTalk CNO require advanced infrastructures provid-ing capabilities such as: multi-level support for LQWHURSHUDELOLW\ VHFXULW\ UHFRQ¿JXUDWLRQ DQG recovery mechanisms The following section presents some relevant platforms and technolo-gies for CNOs

C Infrastructures and Technologies

An overview of the current approaches and WUHQGVWRZDUGVWKHHVWDEOLVKPHQWRIÀH[LEOHDQG

in Camarinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh (2003)

(PHUJLQJWHFKQRORJLHVIRUÀH[LEOH9(LQIUDVWUXF-tures are grouped as follows:

• Open inter-operable underlying network

pro-tocols (e.g., TCP/IP, CORBA-IIOP, HTTP,

RMI, SOAP)

• Open distributed object-oriented middleware

services (e.g., J2EE Framework, CORBA

Framework, Active X Framework)

• Information/object exchange mechanisms

and tools (e.g., XML, ebXML, WSDL)

• Standardized modeling of business

compo-nents, processes, and objects (e.g., EJBs)

• Business process modeling tools and

lan-guages (e.g., UML, UEML, WfMC

XML-based Business Language, PSL)

• Open and standard business process

auto-PDWLRQDQGZRUNÀRZPDQDJHPHQWV\VWHP

(e.g., WfMC, OMG-JointFlow)

• Standard interfacing to federated

multi-databases (e.g., JDBC)

• Intelligent mobile agents (e.g., FIPA,

OMG-MASIF, Mobile Objects)

• Open and standard distributed messaging

middleware systems (e.g., JMS,

MS-mes-sage server, MQSeries, FIPA-ACC)

• XML-based e-commerce protocols (e.g.,

BizTalk, RosettaNet, OBI, WIDL)

• Web integration technologies (e.g., Servlets,

JSP, MS-ASP, XSL)

Concerning infrastructures to support VE,

Ca-marinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh (2003) illustrate

two of the main approaches (from the software

engineering perspective): transaction-oriented

layer (TOL) based frameworks, and agent-based

infrastructures (ABI)

TOL infrastructures add a cooperation layer

to the existing IT platforms of the enterprises,

and inter-enterprise communication is performed

through layers interaction (e.g.,

transaction-ori-ented) Examples of projects developing such

in-frastructures are: National Industrial Information Infrastructure Protocols (NIIIP, http://www.niiip org), Production Planning and Management in an Extended Enterprise (PRODNET II, http://www uninova.pt/~prodnet), and Virtual Enterprises using Groupware tools and distributed Architectures (VEGA) (Zarli & Poyet, 2001), which aimed at designing open platforms to support the basic information exchange and cooperation needs in industrial VE

For ABI, enterprises are represented as agents, and the interactions in a distributed multi-agent system determine inter-enterprise cooperation Multi-agent Manufacturing Agile Scheduling Systems for Virtual Enterprises (MASSYVE, http://www.cordis.lu/esprit/src/962219.htm) and Dy-namic Forecast for Master Production Planning with stock and capacity constraints (DAMAS-CUS, http://www.damascos.com) are examples of projects developing such infrastructures

Table 1 presents infrastructure characteris-tics of PRODNET II, NIIIP, DAMASCUS, and VEGA projects

A more in-depth analysis concerning trends

in VE support infrastructures is available in Camarinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh (2003) The authors present also limitations for current VE/VO infrastructures and collaborative frameworks The PDLQSUREOHPVLGHQWL¿HGFRQFHUQWKHODFNRIHI-fective approach to interoperability (e.g., software inter-operation, information exchange/integra-WLRQ DQG WKH ODFN RI VWDQGDUG GH¿QLWLRQV DQG mechanisms As pointed out by Camarinha-Matos and Afsarmanesh (2003), most of the technologies supporting integration and interoperability in a networked environment are at their beginnings, and they require considerable effort to implement DQGFRQ¿JXUHUHOLDEOHLQIUDVWUXFWXUHVVXSSRUWLQJ CNO creation and development

Several research projects are currently being pursued in the area of grid technology Grids facilitate the sharing, selection, and aggregation

of geographically-distributed resources (e.g., su-percomputers, storage systems), which can cross

Supporting T

Design and develop an open platform and adequate information technology (IT) protocols and mechanisms to support virtual industrial enterprises

and Internet technologies,

Solve incompatibility issues within

or with each other regardless of data structures or computing environments

technologies (e.g., IDL, CORBA), ZRUNÀRZ

(with application in other sectors)

Establish an information infrastructure which supports technical activities and business operations for

Design and develop an open platform providing adequate IT modules and mechanisms to manage customized supply networks in a multi-enterprise scenario

Table 1 Examples of infrastructure characteristics and typical services offered

single or multiple organizations, aiming at

solv-ing large-scale computational and data-intensive

problems in science, engineering, and commerce

(http://www.gridcomputing.com) Unlike other

approaches (e.g., clusters, where the resources’ allocation is performed by a centralized resource manager and all nodes cooperatively work together

each node has its own resource manager

In the USA, large projects developed in the

area of networked enterprises focus on middleware

and grid technology Started in 2001, National

Science Foundation Middleware Initiative (NMI,

http://www.nsf-middleware.org) aims at designing,

developing, deploying, and supporting a set of

reusable, expandable set of middleware

func-WLRQVDQGVHUYLFHVWKDWEHQH¿WDSSOLFDWLRQVLQD

networked environment Two system integration

projects started in Fall of 2003: Grid Research

Integration Deployment and Support (GRIDS

Center, http://www.grids-center.org) and Enterprise

and Desktop Integration Technologies (EDIT,

http://www.nmi-edit.org) GRIDS Center develops,

tests, deploys, and supports standard tools for

authentication, authorization and policy, resource

discovery and directory services, and remote

ac-cess to computers, data, and instruments EDIT

consortium developed a set of core middleware

tools in the areas of identity and access

manage-ment architectures, standards for deploymanage-ments,

elated directories, schemas, and tools

In Europe, the European Commission has been

¿QDQFLQJJULGUHVHDUFKVLQFHHDUO\ZKHQ

WKH¿UVW(8JULGUHODWHGSURMHFWVZHUHODXQFKHG

under the 5th research Framework Program (FP5)

(CORDIS, 2005, http://www.cordis.lu/ist/grids)

Grid research projects under FP5 were focused

on technology development and application

pilots, and results of these research projects are

now deployed in grid-enabled research

infra-structures made available by FP6 projects (e.g.,

EGEE, DEISA)

The approach for grid research being pursued

in FP6 (2002-2006) refers to CORDIS (2005):

• Technology push: aims at developing the

underlying technologies and tackling issues

such as integration, open standards and

interoperability

• Application pull: aims at developing the

enabling technologies for real-world

ap-plications, such as modeling, simulation, data-mining, and collaboration

According to CORDIS (2005), the most rel-evant current EU grid initiatives are:

• GRIDCOORD: (http://www.gridcoord.

org)

• InteliGrid: (http://www.inteliGrid.com)—

interoperability of virtual organizations on

a complex semantic grid

• OntoGrid: (http://www.ontogrid.net)—

paving the way for knowledgeable grid services and systems;

• Data Mining Grid:

(http://www.dat-amininggrid.org)—data mining tools and services for Grid computing environ-ments;

• Provenance: (http://www.gridprovenance.

org)—enabling and supporting provenance

in Grids for complex problems;

• K-WF Grid: (http://www.kwfgrid.net)—

NQRZOHGJHEDVHGZRUNÀRZV\VWHPIRU*ULG applications;

• UniGrids:

(http://www.unigrids.org)—uni-form interface to grid services;

• HPC4U: (http://www.hpc4u.org)—highly

predictable clusters for Internet Grids;

• SIMDAT: (http://www.scai.fraunhofer.

de/simdat.html)—data grids for process and product development using numerical simulation and knowledge discovery;

• NextGrid:

(http://www.nextgrid.org)—ar-chitecture for next generation grids;

• Akogrimo: (http://www.mobilegrids.

org)—access to knowledge through the grid

in a mobile world; and

• CoreGRID: (http://www.coregrid.net)—

European research network on foundations, software infrastructures, and applications for large-scale distributed grid and peer-to-peer technologies

of computer-based tools aiming at enterprise

in-WHJUDWLRQDQGLQWHURSHUDELOLW\DQGWKHVFLHQWL¿F

developments in the business networking area,

it is generally accepted that more work needs

to be done since available solutions are usually

FXPEHUVRPH DQG ODFN LQ ÀH[LELOLW\ WR UHVSRQG

to the most recent technological outcomes, very

RIWHQIRFXVLQJRQYHU\VSHFL¿FDVSHFWV7KHVFL-HQWL¿FFRPPXQLW\DJUHHVWKDWTXHVWLRQVUHODWHG

to formalization, conceptual development, and

semantic integration (namely, concerning the

formal description of the domain or ontology)

need to be urgently developed

(Camarinha-Ma-tos, 2003)

RELEVANT APPROACHES

Relevant initiatives, such as papiNet, ebXML,

freebXML, and RosettaNet are discussed more

in detail in the fallowing paragraphs

papiNET

papiNET (http://www.papinet.org) is an

interna-tional paper and forest products industry

e-busi-ness initiative It is a set of standard electronic

GRFXPHQWVZKLFKIDFLOLWDWHVWKHÀRZRILQIRUPD-tion among parties engaged in buying, selling,

and distribution of paper and forest products

The papiNet Standards Group has the vision of

enterprises of any size and in any geographical

location meeting and conducting the business of

paper, printing, and publishing with each other

through the exchange of XML-based messages

SDSL1HW DLPV DW LQFUHDVLQJ HI¿FLHQF\ LQ

transaction and marketplace activities through

documented business processes with supporting

standard XML messages and consistent data

GH¿QLWLRQV FRPPRQ WHUPLQRORJ\ DQG IRUPDWV

real-time exchange of information through the

Internet, in order to ensure standards’

interoper-ability among trading partners (in the paper and

forest products industry, or in other industries) papiNet standard is a set of common electronic formats and terminology for the paper and forest products industry, designed to facilitate applica-tion-to-application information exchange Its interoperability guidelines are based on ebXML PHVVDJHVHUYLFHVSHFL¿FDWLRQ0HVVDJHVKDYHD YHU\XQLIRUPVWUXFWXUHZLWKFRPPRQGH¿QLWLRQV FRQWDLQHG LQ WKH ¿OH WKDW LV VKDUHG DPRQJ DOO WKHPHVVDJHVFKHPD¿OHV7KHPRVWSUHYDOHQWO\ implemented message is delivery message, fol-ORZHGE\WKHSXUFKDVHRUGHURUGHUFRQ¿UPDWLRQ and invoice (http://www.papinet.org)

papiNet has formally accepted from ebXML the message service and collaboration (CPPA) aspects The internal integration information is used to determine how ebXML envelope (which acts as a common interface between systems) is used, when received, and how it is going to be created the ebXML envelope when sending Figure

2 illustrates the papiNet interoperability approach

It is intended that any trading partner can open a message (payload) sent to them, regardless of the messaging service which was used

ebXML and freebXML

eXtensible Markup Language (ebXML, http:// www.ebxml.org LV D VHW RI VSHFL¿FDWLRQV WKDW together enable a modular electronic business framework ebXML vision is to enable a global electronic marketplace where enterprises of any size and in any geographical location can meet and conduct business with each other through the exchange of XML-based messages Several industries endorse ebXML (e.g, computer/technol-ogy companies, banking, shipping)

One of the core values of ebXML is its vision

of ubiquity from a technology perspective (Dour-naee, 2004) ebXML is built around XML, SOAP, HTTP, and SMTP—all open standards

ebXML provides a complete framework for business interactions, all delivered as a set of YHQGRUQHXWUDO VSHFL¿FDWLRQV DQG WKH FRQFUHWH

VHWRIHE;0/VSHFL¿FDWLRQVUHIHUVWRWKHIROORZ-ing concepts:

• Centralized shared registry: Registry

in-formation model (ebRIM), registry service

VSHFL¿FDWLRQVHE56

• Business processes and collaboration:

%XVLQHVV SURFHVVHV VSHFL¿FDWLRQ VFKHPD

HE%366 FROODERUDWLRQSURWRFRO SUR¿OH

DQGDJUHHPHQWVSHFL¿FDWLRQHE&33$

• Messaging:0HVVDJHVHUYLFHVSHFL¿FDWLRQ

(ebMS)

ebXML registry is similar to a database,

be-ing able to represent a large range of objects (e.g.,

XML schemas, business process descriptions,

ebXML core components, UML models, generic

trading partner information) ebXML registry

DUFKLWHFWXUHLVGH¿QHGLQWHUPVRIUHJLVWU\VHUYLFH

DQG UHJLVWU\ FOLHQW 7KH ¿UVW RQH SURYLGHV WZR

LQWHUIDFHVGH¿QHGXVLQJWeb Service Description

Language (WSDL):

• Life-cycle management interface: used to

manage the life cycle of the objects

• Query management interface: used to

make queries against a registry

HE5,0LVGH¿QLQJDQGPDQDJLQJLQWHURSHUDEOH

registries and repositories The core information

model used by ebXML registry is a tree-based

FODVVL¿FDWLRQVFKHPHDQGWKHLQIRUPDWLRQHJ information referring to business partners, indus-tries) is arranged in a hierarchy

HE%366LVXVHGWRGH¿QHWKHbusiness processes (BPs) and business documents (BDs) involved BPs and BDs are designed and documented prior

to their use They are usually composed from existing components and processes Both of them are documented using ebBPSS, and stored in an ebXML registry so that they can be referred from other structures (e.g., PPs, CPAs)

ebBPSS is used to specify public business processes It provides an XML schema to specify binary collaborations among parties A binary collaboration may consist of multiple business WUDQVDFWLRQVHDFKRQHRIWKHPEHLQJVSHFL¿HGLQ terms of business envelopes, business documents, and business signals which are communicated among parties

A FROODERUDWLRQSURWRFROSUR¿OH&33SURYLGHV the information needed to do business with a VSHFL¿FWUDGLQJSDUWQHUHJEXVLQHVVSURFHVVHV document formats) When two parties trade for WKH ¿UVW WLPH WKHLU &33V DUH FRPELQHG LQWR D collaboration protocol agreement (CPA), which serves as the basis for the interaction ebCPPA VSHFL¿HV WKH ;0/ VFKHPD IRU &33 DQG &3$ and includes guidelines to form a CPA from two

&33V&33GH¿QHVWKHWHFKQLFDOFDSDELOLWLHVRI

a partner engaged in electronic business col-laborations with other partners by exchanging

Figure 2 papiNet: Interoperability standard approach (Adapted after papiNet, 2004)

Integration Information

papiNet Document

Any Messenger

ebXML envelope

papiNet Document

Any Messenger

ebXML envelope

papiNet Document

Integration Information

papiNet Document

electronic messages It includes elements such as:

party’s information (e.g., contact name), transport

protocol, transport security protocol, messaging

protocol CPA is a special business agreement

WLHGWRDVSHFL¿FWUDQVDFWLRQDQGPDNHVH[SOLFLW

requirements derived from the intersection of the

various CPP instances published by each of the

trading partners

In order to assure the communication among

applications and business processes from different

business partners, it is necessary to capture

criti-cal information upon which organizations must

agree An electronic trading partner agreement

(TPA) registers such information A TPA is an

;0/GRFXPHQWWKDWUHFRUGVVSHFL¿FWHFKQRORJ\

parameters for conducting electronic business

HJSDUWQHULGHQWL¿FDWLRQFRPPXQLFDWLRQSUR-tocol, security for message exchanges)

HE06VSHFL¿FDWLRQGH¿QHVWKHHE;0/PHV-sage service protocol, and it is designed to enable

a secure and reliable exchange of business

mes-VDJHVEHWZHHQWUDGLQJSDUWQHUV7KHVSHFL¿FDWLRQ

for the message-based service invocation focuses

RQ GH¿QLQJ D FRPPXQLFDWLRQ SURWRFRO QHXWUDO

method for exchanging electronic business

mes-VDJHVGH¿QLQJVSHFL¿FHQYHORSLQJFRQVWUXFWVIRU

a secure and reliable exchange of messages, and a

VSHFL¿FHQYHORSLQJWHFKQLTXHDOORZLQJPHVVDJHV

to contain payloads of any format type

ebXML is designed to meet enterprises’ needs

to conduct electronic business, by providing: an

infrastructure which ensures data communication

interoperability (e.g., standard message transport

mechanism, business service interface); a

seman-tic framework supporting business

interoper-DELOLW\ HJ PHWDPRGHO IRU GH¿QLQJ EXVLQHVV

processes and information models, set of reusable

core components); and a discovery mechanism

enabling enterprises to discover each other, to

reach an agreement and to conduct business (e.g.,

shared repository network) (Campbell, 2001)

A high-level presentation on how an ebXML

interaction occurs can be framed in terms of

HE;0/¶VWKUHHIXQFWLRQDOSKDVHVGH¿QHGE\WKH

ebXML technical architecture Each functional SKDVHGH¿QHVLWVRZQVHFXULW\UHTXLUHPHQWVDQG processes: implementation phase, discovery and retrieval phase, and run-time phase (Dournaee, 2004)

The implementation phase starts when a trad-ing partner makes an active decision to do business using ebXML framework During this phase, the trading partner will analyze its business processes and will publish them into a registry An actual ebXML implementation is made then, aiming

at attaining a working ebXML framework, and includes a set of published business processes, the CPP, and interfaces

During discovery and retrieval phase, trading partners use the registry to discover business processes and interfaces published by other trad-LQJSDUWQHUVHJWKH&33IRUDVSHFL¿FSDUWQHU

is exchanged)

The run-time phase is concerned with the actual business transactions and choreography

of messages exchanged between trading part-ners Typically, there is no run-time access to the registry during this phase Firstly, each trading partner is responsible for obtaining the necessary CPP document for a potential business partner Usually, CPP is retrieved from an ebXML regis-try Secondly, each partner derives the CPA, and

¿QDOO\WKHWUDGLQJSDUWQHUVFDQVWDUWSHUIRUPLQJ business transactions Figure 3 illustrates run-time phase

ebXML aims at creating a generic meta-model for business processes which allows it to model each business process in a machine-readable way This can enable companies to deploy software that DXWRPDWLFDOO\DGDSWVWRVSHFL¿FEXVLQHVVSURFHVVHV

of different trading partners (SWWS, 2003) HE;0/VSHFL¿FDWLRQVKDYHPDWXUHGUDSLGO\ over the past years, and its relevance for enterprise integration and interoperability in a collaborative business environment is emphasized by the aug-menting number of research projects and technol-ogy infrastructures based on ebXML standard Both OASIS and UN/CEFEACT pursued several

standards developments, in real-world projects,

combining ebXML with other technologies (e.g.,

Web services) in key industry sectors and

govern-ment (ebXML, 2003) Examples of such projects

are: JXTA Project, in the USA; COMOS Project

&OXVWHU2I6\VWHPVRI0HWDGDWDIRU2I¿FLDO6WD-tistics), in Europe; and Kasumi B2B integration

project in Japan There is also underway a relevant

project between RosettaNet (http://www.rosettanet

org) and ebXML, making use of ebXML BPSS,

Registry, and ebMS RosettaNet has adopted BPSS

as they pursue the next evolution of the PIPs, and

it is operating private registry with their

techni-cal dictionary content loaded A more complete

list of research projects focusing on ebXML is

available in ebXML (2003)

Very few analytical comparisons are available

concerning EI standards and technologies, based

on different criteria For instance, related to B2B

standards, an interesting approach for the

com-parison of ebXML and RosettaNet was made by

Pusnik, Juric, Rozman, and Sumak (2000), and

Nurmilaakso and Kotinurmi (2004) compares

XML-based B2B integration frameworks

Comparing ebXML and Web Services, both

of them use SOAP for message transport XML

Web services have a loosely coupled wire stack

WKDWFRQVLVWVRIVHSDUDWHVSHFL¿FDWLRQVIRUUHOLDEOH

transport and security, while ebXML rolls all this

functionality into its messaging standard (ebMS),

making use of different technologies For the description of the discovery stacks, XML Web services use Web Services Description Language, (WSDL, http://www.w3.org/TR/wsdl) and universal description, discovery and integration protocol, (UDDI, http://www.uddi.org), while for ebXML these description and discovery mechanisms are part of ebXML registry ebXML includes ad-GLWLRQDOVSHFL¿FDWLRQVIRUEXVLQHVVSURFHVVDQG collaboration In fact, ebXML is a self-contained VHWRIVSHFL¿FDWLRQVDQGGRHVQRWUHO\RQHPHUJLQJ VWDQGDUGVDQGVSHFL¿FDWLRQV'RXUQDHH freebXML (http://www.freebxml.org) is an initiative aiming at fostering the development and adoption of ebXML and related technolo-gies through software and experience sharing Its objectives are to create a centralized site for WKHVKDULQJRI³IUHH´HE;0/FRGHDQGDSSOLFD-tions, and to promote ebXML as an e-commerce enabling technology Relevant research projects have been developed, aiming at achieving these objectives (e.g., Hermes Message Service Han-dler, ebMail)

Messaging service is a key component of

ebX-ML technical architecture ebMS utilizes SOAP, Internet transport protocols, and other security standards, aiming at providing enterprises with a standardized, reliable, and secure infrastructure for the exchange of business documents

Figure 3 ebXML run-time phase (Adapted after Dournaee, 2004)

Trading Partner 1

ebXML Registry

Trading Partner 2

Registers CPP1

Registers CPP2

ebMS Messages

to their use They are usually composed from existing components and processes Both of them are documented... deploys, and supports standard tools for

authentication, authorization and policy, resource

discovery and directory services, and remote

ac-cess to computers, data, and instruments... standards’

interoper-ability among trading partners (in the paper and

forest products industry, or in other industries) papiNet standard is a set of common electronic formats and