UNCEFACT-TMG - ebXML CCTS - Announces 2nd Iteration of Public Review

The UNCEFACT TMG has announced the release of Core Components Technical Specification (CCTS) Version 3 for second public review. The comments phase of this second public review will be from 16 April 2007 until 15May 2007.

CCTS describes and specifies a semantic-based approach to the well-understood problem of the lack of information interoperability within and between applications and data bases in the e-business arena. It focuses especially on a dynamic, flexible and interoperable way of standardizing business semantics of libraries for electronic business data exchange. It defines meta models, and rules necessary for describing the structure and contents of conceptual and logical, and physical data models that can be used for collaborative business processes and information exchange.

The UN/CEFACT Open Development Process (ODP) calls for a eight step approach to developing UN/CEFACT Standards. These eight steps are:
1. Proposal 2. Requirements Determination 3. First Draft 4. Working Drafts 5. Public Review 6. Implementation Verification 7. Approval 8. Maintenance

The CCTS is currently at Step 5 - Public Review - 2nd Iteration.

Full details can be found from the resource site:
http://75.43.29.149:8080/display/public/CCTS+-+ODP+5+-+Public+Review

NIH/OD releases upgraded S2Sclient for Grants Submissions interfacing via ebXML

The new S2Sclient B2B appliance for support of Electronic Submission of Grant Applications released by the NIH Office of Extramural Research includes significant enhancements and improvements. Based on the popular Hermes v1.1 implementation of ebMS - the new S2Sclient supports Tomcat v5 and also Java 1.5+ and a dramatically smaller footprint and enhanced performance.

NIH/OD have also revamped the System-to-System webpage on their eSubmission website to clearly delineate the system-to-system testing with Grants.gov from the web services that NIH offers.

The webpage has been divided into three main sections:

- System-to-System Testing

- NIH Web Services
o The NIH web services has accompanying diagrams to illustrate the service flow
o Under Technical Documentation, these two documents have been updated:
o The NIH S2S Client Installation Guide
o The S2S Developer Guide

- Resources and Responsibilities, including FAQs, responsibilities of System-to-System Trading Partners and Support.

Check out the new website at: http://era.nih.gov/ElectronicReceipt/system.htm

and the S2Sclient toolset at: http://era.nih.gov/ElectronicReceipt/system_webserv_access.htm

CECID releases enhanced Hermes 2 ebMS

The Center for E-commerce Infrastructure Development, The University of Hong Kong released an upgraded version of its new Hermes 2 system.

http://www.cecid.hku.hk/hermes.php

Enhancements include -
- Database connection leakage correction
- Datetime format changes for the field "timestamp"
- A change to enhance the performance of ebMS messaging with ack request (sync reply mode only)
- Minor bugs and corrections

A further performance enhancement release is also planned for asynchronous mode handling as well - but no release date has been given for that yet.