ebXML Forum News

OASIS ebXML RegRep V4.0 approved as an OASIS Standard

2012-01-26T21:22:00.000-05:00

OASIS ebXML RegRep Version 4.0 has been approved by the membership as an OASIS Standard [1].

The OASIS ebXML RegRep V4.0 [3] standard specification defines the service interfaces, protocols and information model for an integrated registry and repository. The repository stores digital content while the registry stores metadata that describes the content in the repository. RegRep is an open specification for software that manages diverse content such as documents, images, services, devices, assets, schemas, WSDL, ontologies, records. Statements of Use for RegRep V4.0 were received from MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, Wellfleet Software and NOAA. More information on OASIS ebXML RegRep v4.0 and the TC generally can be found on the TCs web page at http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/regrep/.

B2B Web Services: ebXML Messaging version 3.0 and AS4 Interoperability Demonstration

2011-06-13T18:12:00.000-04:00

Announcement: Webinar on June 29

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/665092680

Within OASIS, the ebXML Messaging Services Technical Committee designs Web Services-based messaging protocols for B2B data exchange. In 2002 the TC developed the version 2.0 of ebMS. Since then it has continued to respond to emerging requirements and newer technologies and standards which in 2007 resulted in the OASIS standard approved version 3.0 Core Specification. And most recently, the TC has produced two significant new deliverables: · The AS4 profile : a light-weight profile of the ebMS 3.0 Core Specification. AS4 is designed with input from GS1 and is a Web Services-based functional superset of both ebMS 2.0 and of the EDIINT AS2 standard. · The ebMS 3.0 Advanced Features Specification : extends the ebMS 3.0 Core Specification with support for ebMS intermediaries (multi-hop), efficient high-volume messaging (bundling) and exchange of very large messages (splitting and compression). OASIS invites you to attend a free webinar that will provide: § A recap of ebMS 3.0, its main features and advantages over the earlier version 2.0. § A brief overview of AS4 and the new Advanced Features specification. § An interoperability demonstration showing use of AS4 in support of the OAG Order to Invoice process for use in the midmarket. This demonstration will involve multiple independent AS4 implementations. Who should attend: Standards experts from other OASIS TCs and from other standards groups working on B2B data exchange or Web Services. Software architects, product managers and product marketeers in B2B and data exchange areas. End users and specialists with an interest in new trends in data exchange. Reference links: ebMS TC public home page: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=ebxml-msg Time: 17:00 PM - 19:00 PM CEST (Central Europe) 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EDT (US East Coast) 08:00 AM - 09:00 AM PDT (US West Coast)
Title:	B2B Web Services: ebXML Messaging version 3.0 and AS4 Interoperability Demonstration
Date:	Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Time:	11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EDT

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4.11 (Tiger®) or newer

Latest CAMeditor v1.9 now available from Sourceforge

2011-02-02T22:47:00.000-05:00

The latest CAMeditor release is now available from Sourceforge:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/camprocessor/

Highlights include:

1) Complete external code lists support for code values via files and import of code lists

2) Enhancements to the evaluator, NDR checks and NIEM re-use scoring tools

3) Performance enhancements to XSD schema importing tool

4) Generation of NIEM EIEC / BIEC dictionary schema from ERwin enterprise model components

5) Support for KeyRef notations in structure editor

6) Enhanced XML example generation

Then there's a raft of fixin's and improvements from over 4 months of development since the last release. Full details are in the release notes PDF documentation and the online tracker system.

Please feel free to provide feedback via Sourceforge project discussion area, OASIS CAM dev list, or contacting the team directly.

ebXML framework and cloud services interoperability?

2011-02-02T22:43:00.000-05:00

According to a new blog post on AS4 it has the potential to become the standard for cloud based integration services. For more information on the concepts and ideas - see:

http://blogs.gxs.eu/2010/11/30/will-as4-become-the-communications-standard-for-cloud-based-integration-services/

February, 2011

Call for participation - OASIS Business Document Exchange TC

2010-12-01T14:36:00.000-05:00

The purpose of the TC is to define specifications for a lightweight and federated messaging infrastructure supporting a 4-corner model(1) for the secure and reliable exchange of electronic documents.
The specific objectives will be to:

1. Establish specifications for a lightweight and federated document transport infrastructure supporting the secure and reliable exchange of electronic business documents.

2. Profile and maintain a robust, secure and lightweight addressing mechanism (SMLP) capable of exposing metadata about endpoints (including supported business processes, content standards, transport protocols, and security requirements) and capable of being operated in a highly distributed environment.

3. Support the dynamic creation of connections based on look-up of services at runtime.

4. a) Profile and maintain the START (Secure Trusted Asynchronous Reliable Transport) protocol. START is intended to be used as a transport profile between Service Providers in the 4-corner model.

4. b) Profile and maintain the LIME (Lightweight Message Exchange) protocol, a secure and reliable lightweight messaging protocol. LIME is intended to be used as a transport profile between senders or receivers and their Service Providers in a 4-corner model.

5. Profile and maintain the ebMS 3.0 protocol for use in the 4-corner model with SMLP.

6. Give guidance on using other transports in a 4-corner model.

7. Develop specifications that support service levels appropriate for large scale deployment.
First meeting:

The first meeting will be held on 19 January 2011 (at 17:00 CET) as a one-hour conference call. The meeting facility will be available at

https://connect.forskningsnettet.dk/bdexchange/. Sign in as guest.

(1) The 4-Corner Model

A document exchange process set-up whereby each Participant has contracted with one or several separate Service Providers, whereby the Service Providers ensure the correct interchange of documents between the Participants.
When senders and receivers of documents are supported by their own consolidator service provider (for the sender) and aggregator service provider (for the receiver), it is referred to as a 4-Corner model. A network usually based on open standards provides connectivity and the facilities for the secure trusted exchange of business documents. In the 4-Corner models, the consolidator and aggregator roles are often two different service providers.

Definition inspired from http://www.e-invoice-gateway.net/helpandsupport/glossary/

For more information see:

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=bdx

Public review of OASIS ebXML Messaging Services Version 3.0: Part 2, Advanced Features

2010-08-15T13:02:00.000-04:00

The OASIS ebXML Messaging Services Technical Committee has recently approved the following specification as a Committee Draft and approved the package for public review.

This specification complements the ebMS 3.0 Core Specification by specifying advanced messaging functionality for message service configuration, message bundling, messaging across intermediaries (multi-hop) and transfer of (compressed) messages as series of smaller message fragments.

The public review starts today, 13 August 2010, and ends 12 October 2010. This is an open invitation to comment. We strongly encourage feedback from potential users, developers and others, whether OASIS members or not, for the sake of improving the interoperability and quality of OASIS work. We also welcome interested parties to join the TC as it continues to further development of its specifications. Please feel free to distribute this announcement within your organization and to other appropriate mail lists.

Comments may be submitted to the TC by any person through the use of the OASIS TC Comment Facility:

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/comments/index.php?wg_abbrev=ebxml-msg
The specification document and related files are available here:

Editable Source:
http://docs.oasis-open.org/ebxml-msg/ebms/v3.0/part2/201004/ebms-v3-part2-cd-01.odt
PDF:
http://docs.oasis-open.org/ebxml-msg/ebms/v3.0/part2/201004/ebms-v3-part2-cd-01.pdf
HTML:
http://docs.oasis-open.org/ebxml-msg/ebms/v3.0/part2/201004/ebms-v3-part2-cd-01.html

X509 Public Key Extract Utility released to open source

2010-07-31T00:42:00.000-04:00

Axway have made available under an open source (Apache 2.0) license a utility to extract public key information from an X509 certificate. The utility builds an XML KeyInfo element as defined by http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig# .

http://code.google.com/p/keyinfowriter/downloads/list

This utility is of interest to anyone involved in managing ebXML CPAs that use certificates for signing or encryption. This utility is used by the JustId open source CPA toolkit.

ebXML messaging CPA toolkit released as open source.

2010-07-31T00:39:00.000-04:00

The Justitiële Informatiedienst in Almelo, the Netherlands, has released the toolkit that it developed to support management of ebXML Collaboration Protocol Agreements (CPAs) under an open source (EUPL) license. The toolkit, and previous versions of it, have been used to create and manage the CPAs for organizations in various government sectors in the Netherlands. Hundreds of millions of ebXML messages have been exchanged based on CPAs created using the toolkit.

The download package (ZIP) contains some English documentation, while some documentation is in Dutch only at the moment.

OSOR project description:

The CPA Creation Toolkit is a web-based application to easily create a Collaboration Protocol Agreement (CPA). A CPA document is an XML based document that describes the formal relationship between two parties, specifying an ebMS trading agreement between trading partners. The following information will typically be contained in a CPA document:

Identification information: the unique identifiers for each party and their roles within the trading relationship
Security information: for instance, are digital signatures required, and what algorithms do they use
Communication information: the protocols that will be used when exchanging documents
Endpoint locations: the URL, service and action messages should be sent to
Rules to follow when acknowledgments are not received for messages, including how long to wait before resending, and how many times to resend
Whether duplicate messages should be ignored
Whether acknowledgments are required for all messages.

Version 4.0 of the CPA Creation Toolkit features:

CPA creation
CPA, Services and Participants Repository
ebBP specification import/transformation to Simple Message Format (SMF)
Excel import/transformation to Simple Message Format (SMF)
Transform certficates to XMLDSig KeyInfo
Generate Message Meta Data (MMD) files
Adjust CPA for SSL-offloading
XML Schema Definition (XSD) of services and participants
Documentation, examples, templates.

Download link is:
https://forge.osor.eu/projects/cpatoolkit/

Latest ebMS V3 Part 2 Schema for 15 day public review

2010-07-08T10:43:00.000-04:00

The OASIS ebXML Messaging committee has published its latest committee draft for review package.

The package is available here:

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/document.php?document_id=38516

This includes notes on the new components added to message header and feature set supported.

Comments can be sent to the technical committee via the comments list or directly to the committee chair.

IBM Datapower XB60 support for ebXML v2.0

2010-06-17T14:38:00.000-04:00

IBM have announced availability of the following enhancements for their DataPower devices.

The DataPower device provides firmware accelerated handling of XML and xslt along with secure communications, routing and certificate management.

Basically a XML developers dream tool (speaking from experience with these).

Now add ebXML too for awesome B2B applications; what is not to like?!

WebSphere DataPower B2B Appliance XB60 enhancements include

Updated B2B protocol support with the addition of ebMS v2.0
B2B interoperability through the completion of Drummond Group 1Q2010 AS2 certification
Support for Active/Passive meta-store failover (HA)
Support for multi-step processing in the B2B Gateway Service

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21428696&acss=wdp061710

Fujitsu publishes "Holodeck" open source ebMS v3.0 implementation on Sourceforge

2010-05-19T16:35:00.000-04:00

The new ebMS v3.0 specification has its first publicly available implementation courtesy of Fujitsu.

There are a number of intriguing aspects to this as well with respect to the deployment models and services they are enabling, presumably to complement their own enterprise level solution platform.

You can check out the project details of "Holodeck", an open source version of ebXML Messaging V3 (http://docs.oasis-open.org/ebxml-msg/ebms/v3.0/core/os/ebms_core-3.0-spec-os.pdf ) and its AS4 profile (http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/ebxml-msg-as4/document.php?...) now on Sourceforge at http://holodeck-b2b.sourceforge.net/ with main on-line documentation page directly accessible at: http://holodeck-b2b.sourceforge.net/docs/

XML Validation Framework using OASIS CAM (CAMV)

2010-05-13T21:54:00.000-04:00

This article on IBM DeveloperWorks explores the use of the CAMV Java engine to implement a flexible XML validation framework.

The application development process is discussed along with sample code snippets and an XML example using the STAR (Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail) Automotive Business Object Document (BOD) schema and associated CAM XML template.

The approach for XML Validation using OASIS Content Assembly Mechanism (CAM) templates supports a wide array of complex message exchanges with business partners using B2B or B2C business patterns. The CAM templates simplify and externalize the validation rules while allowing the gateway to act as a pass-through on information that is not directly relevant.

Read the full article at: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-camval/index.html

Public review of ebCORE Party Id Type committee specification

2010-04-15T13:46:00.002-04:00

The OASIS ebCore TC has released the OASIS ebCore Party Id Type
Technical Specification Version 1.0 for public review.

Abstract:

"A mechanism for the identification of business partners in XML business documents and XML message headers using URN-based identifier types is required in many electronic business exchanges.

This specification specifies a formal URN-based mechanism for referencing party types from the ISO
6523, ISO 9735 and ISO 20022 identification scheme catalogs using the oasis URN namespace.

Sample applications include (but are not limited to): ebXML message headers; ebXML
collaboration protocol profiles and agreements; UBL, UN/CEFACT and OAGIS XML business documents;

and the UN/CEFACT SBDH."

PDF:
http://docs.oasis-open.org/ebcore/PartyIdType/v1.0/CD02/PartyIdType-1.0.pdf
HTML:
http://docs.oasis-open.org/ebcore/PartyIdType/v1.0/CD02/PartyIdType-1.0.html

For information on how to submit comments to the TC, see:

http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/members/201004/msg00008.html

New .NET ebXML adaptor for H2O message server

2010-04-11T23:29:00.002-04:00

CECID has jointly developed the .NET Development Tool for H2O with Apacus Software Corporation. The .NET tool developed allows applications written in C# to invoke the web services provided by H2O, without needing to know any details regarding the ebXML SOAP message format or in particular the SOAP with attachments details for sending and receiving messages.

Apacus is a Microsoft solution provider and the low cost H2O adapter provides .NET developers a robust proven message system at a fraction of the cost of other solutions.

The .NET library provided by Apacus bridges the gap between the H2O and .NET environment, extending H2O usage to MS platform.

For more details see the download web site (http://www.apacus.com) to obtain either the free trial version with payload size limited or to purchase the full product solution.

CAM v1.8 release - IEPD Tool and Canonical Dictionary support

2010-04-07T12:00:00.002-04:00

The CAM Tool provides developers with a comprehensive solution set for building NIEM IEPD packages. This release consolidates 4 months of development work on both CAMeditor and CAMV for the OASIS CAM (Content Assembly Mechanism), and is the first for the 2010 “Alyeska” series.

Highlights

Significant enhancements are the new XSD Schema generation configured for NIEM 2.0 and NIEM 2.1 folder structures and the ability to use canonical XML dictionary components for top down schema designing. Developers build their information exchange definitions as sets of concise blueprints referencing the canonical XML dictionary of the exchange components. The CAM expander tool then generates the full IEPD exchange template from these. This allows developers to rapidly create tailored XSD schema and XML transaction instances along with their documentation directly by using the CAM tools. Example blueprints are provided for LEXS 3.1.4 and Emergency EDXL Hospital Availability exchanges.

The ability to generate XSD schema includes using folder structures by namespace extension and type (subset, extension, exchange, and external) along with customized header and footer documentation text. Built-in mappings are provided for NIEM 2.0, NIEM 2.1, LEXS and OASIS schemas. Custom mappings can be locally configured to match developer tooling needs.

For IEPD development the enhanced Interoperability and NDR checker provides more consistency rule checks now including spelling assistance. This tool significantly improves the quality of the resulting exchange by detecting common oversights, omissions and schema issues during the design process that are otherwise difficult to detect manually. All IEPD required artifacts can be generated using the CAM tools menu options. The “Compare to NIEM dictionary” tool produces NIEM component percentage reuse report analysis along with generating the NIEM cross-reference spreadsheet and SSGT Wantlist.xml file automatically.

The CAM canonical XML dictionary format is compatible with Microsoft Excel™ and utilizes the Core Components Technical Specification (CCTS) definitions thus making it accessible to business analysts to review the available data definitions for blueprint construction and extension. Included are tools to generate XML canonical dictionaries from existing exchange XSD schema, NIEM SSGT components or ERwin SQL model export XSD schema.

The project vision is to provide the leading open source toolset for implementing standards based information exchanges with XML. Simplifying and speeding the development process and enhancing the quality of your resulting schema for superior XML exchanges. To date the open source project has had over seventeen thousand file downloads from the Sourceforge.net resource site (http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/camprocessor).

The CAM Tool is built using Eclipse, Java, and Saxon xslt and is cross-platform deployable. The included CAMV validation engine can be deployed standalone with IBM MQ™ Application Server or equivalent exchange routing servers and systems.

Additional information on how the CAM methodology can accelerate your information exchange development through the application of XML component dictionaries and blueprints can be found at the OASIS web site:

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/document.php?document_id=36146

OGC announces Earth Observation Profile using ebXML-based Catalogue Services

2010-03-05T12:58:00.002-05:00

A significant milestone has occurred for the use of ebXML Registry related technologies in the geospatial arena.

The Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc. (OGC®) has announced adoption and availability of the OGC Catalogue Services Standard Extension Package for ebRIM Application Profile: Earth Observation Products, and also the related Geography Markup Language (GML) Application Schema for EO Products.

Together, these standards will enable more efficient data publishing and discovery for a wide range of stakeholders who provide and use data generated by satellite-borne and aerial radar, optical and atmospheric sensors.

The OASIS standard ebRIM (Electronic business Registry Information Model) is the preferred cataloguing metamodel foundation for application profiles of the OpenGIS Catalogue Service Web (CS-W) Standard.

For more information see http://www.opengeospatial.org/pressroom/pressreleases/1142

Webswell Business Hub V3 released; more comprehensive B2B process automation

2010-01-21T09:41:00.005-05:00

Webswell Inc. releases Webswell Business Hub 3 - B2B integration platform with ebXML - the premier open source solution for advanced document interchange.

Several enhancements to the overall versatility and flexibility have aimed at making it possible to interconnect virtually anyone to anyone, regardless of supported protocol or technology. The Business Hub implements ebXML, Web Services, AS2 and EDI standards.

Business Hub 3 now contains a dedicated Business Process Engine in order to allow building complex business orchestrations with multiple parties involved.

The key capabilities now available are:-

Support for EDI delivery standards

Better support of Web Services integration

Built-in Business Process engine (BPEL-based) for handling multi-party, multi-document automation.

New web-based (AJAX) monitoring portal that allows routing and management of messaging and business process executions.

The successful Webswell business hub solution is designed to allow companies or units connected to the Business Hub to interchange their documents with partners even when this involves integrating incompatible data formats and supporting different messaging protocols.

For instance, an invoice sent from one company as EDI document via https can be received by a second company as a XML invoice via SMTP (email). Being transmitted through the Business Hub, the business document can be transformed, translated, validated or verified automatically which significantly reduces requirements for participants IT infrastructure.

The new release adds capability to easily track status of business processes via web-enabled dashboard monitoring and control.

For more information and downloading of Webswell Hub 3 see:
http://www.webswell.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=section&id=35&Itemid=84

Webswell Inc. is a San Francisco, CA based integration company with offices in the USA and Europe that specializes in building EDI, ebXML, AS2 and Web Services integration solutions and providing related services.

Hermes H2O update released - better ebXML email delivery support

2010-01-21T09:35:00.002-05:00

A new release of the popular H2O open source ebXML messaging system is now available.

The new release focuses on improvements to message delivery using ebMS by e-mail.

Enhancements include:

adding program library of functions to enable ebMS to query an SMTP mailbox with POP3 and IMAP
Extend the default time interval for ebMS to query mailbox from 5 seconds to 5 minutes
Updated user interface of installer package

The new installer download is available from :

http://community.cecid.hku.hk/index.php/product/download/download_h2o

UN/CEFACT announces formal approval and release of CCTS V3.0

2010-01-06T15:38:00.002-05:00

UN/CEFACT announces availability of CCTS V3.0 for general release
The original core components technical specification, now in V3.

New release is cleaner and more coherent and base types better defined. Although the press release says "neutral model" in reality there is alignment to how W3C Schema enables the core concepts and types to be implemented.

The CCTS Version 3.0 is available from the UNECE website at: http://www.unece.org/cefact/codesfortrade/CCTS/CCTS-Version3.pdf

The CCTS Data Type Catalogue Version 3.0 is available from the UNECE website at: http://www.unece.org/cefact/codesfortrade/CCTS/CCTS-DataTypeCatalogueVersion3p0.pdf

These documents provide much detail and overall knowledge that is applicable for practitioners wishing to understand these aspects of data modelling.

Formal press release: http://www.unece.org/press/pr2009/09trade_p12e.htm

New CAMeditor v1.7 with NIEM 2.1 and LEXS 3.1.4 support

2009-12-11T23:27:00.000-05:00

This release completes the series of 2009 releases and consolidates 3 months of development work on both CAMV validator engine and the CAMeditor tools.

For the CAMeditor significant changes include improvements to the Eclipse user interface and template structure display along with enhancing the top down designer and generation and handling of large dictionary structures. Also included is a new LEXS 3.1.4 dictionary with sample expander blueprint templates for LEXS messages and updates of the NIEM dictionary files to the NIEM 2.1 release. Various NIEM related enhancements have been made in support of better IEPD generation ( http://www.niem.gov ). CAMeditor is built using Eclipse, Java, and Saxon xslt.

The CAMV validation engine is now a thread-safe implementation supporting deployment in middleware containers such as jBOSS or IBM Websphere MQ™. Validation of exchange structures now allows handling of very large XML instances with checking of a discreet subset of business content requirements. Also integration support for Java call methods (SDOM) has been implemented (CAMV is developed in Java using Saxon, Xerces and XPath v2.0 support).

The project vision is to provide the leading open source toolset for implementing standards based information exchanges with XML, including the NIEM IEPD approach. Simplifying and speeding the development process and enhancing the quality of your resulting schema for superior XML exchanges. To date we have had over 15,500 downloads from Sourceforge.net (http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/camprocessor ).

Here’s wishing everyone a Very Happy Holiday Season and all success in 2010 for your XML projects.

ebXML Message Service (ebMS) Adapter for BizTalk Server

2009-10-10T20:46:00.001-04:00

The Covast ebMS Adapter for BizTalk Server has been released as a free downloadable package on www.covast.com (Covast is the R&D center of motion10 - www.motion10.com )

This adapter can be used to exchange messages from within BizTalk Server with trading partners who wish to have the ebMS 2.0 protocol for its reliable messaging capabilities.

Covast as a Microsoft solution partner was asked to develop this adapter because of their experience in B2B exchanges.

The adapter consists of a set of orchestrations (handling retries and acknowledgements), pipelines (handling the ebMS enveloping, encryption and signing) and a tracking database with Admin Console embedded UI and archiving feature. The ebMS Adapter uses the BizTalk Server built-in HTTP(/s), FTP and SMTP adapters for the physical transport. This architecture guarantees full scalability.

For more information on support and service options contact Covast.

Brochure on ebXML benefits and applications

2009-07-07T17:37:00.002-04:00

ebCore Committee publishes brochure

The benefits of ebXML are outlined in a new document aimed at users, business executives, services administrators, and applications solutions providers. An overview of where ebXML is being used is included.

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/32910/ebXML-Top-Reasons.pdf

The brochure provides a convenient ready resource for those considering ebXML for their own solutions.

New release 1.6.5 of OASIS CAM toolkit for exchange schema

2009-05-30T10:20:00.001-04:00

The new release of camprocessor is available on SourceForge:
http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/camprocessor

New features include enhanced tool for evaluating a schema and template against naming and design rules (NDR). The evaluator is capable of flagging a whole range of common mistakes and issues from XSD schema.

The term representation rules and the assessment score are all configurable via xslt functions that are in a separate include file.

Also improved is the XSD schema ingesting process to cover more syntax nuances of XSD - and then the CAM 2 XSD exporter is more comprehensive in its generation of XSD schema - including support for NIEM.gov features and wantlist generation by comparison to the NIEM dictionary.

The XML test case samples generation has also been improved. Overall 38 enhancements and fixes added.

BoostAero ebXML for Aerospace & Defence e-business

2009-05-19T10:46:00.002-04:00

The BoostAero initiative is using ebXML V2 for eSupplyChain exchanges between participating European and American Aerospace & Defence companies (http://www.boostaero.com).

Following the best international standardization practices, the Business Requirement Specifications have been submitted to the UN/CEFACT by the ASD (AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe) and the AIA (IS Aerospace Industries Association).

Three companies have so far attained certification for their ebXML products including Axway, Cleo and SRCI. Cleo supports the AS/400 environment. Axway was recently retained to manage the exchanges of the French SIMMAD (Ministry for Defense) with its external and internal suppliers, through its Synchrony platform (http://www.publi-news.fr/data/12052009/12052009-093522.html).

AS4 Profile of ebMS V3 Version 1.0 Committee Draft opne for comment

2009-04-26T15:42:00.002-04:00

The OASIS ebXML Messaging Services TC has recently approved the AS4 Profile of ebMS V3 Version 1.0 specifications as Committee Drafts and approved them for public review.

The draft is an OASIS ebXML Messaging Services 3.0 Conformance Profile that provides guidance for a standardized methodology for the secure and document-agnostic exchange of B2B payloads using Web services. By constraining the ebMS v3.0 specification and the underlying WS-* specifications for messaging packaging, transport, security, and business non-repudiation, the profile focuses on providing an entry-level on-ramp for Web services B2B messaging.

The end goal of this profile development is to replicate and strategically extend the existing functional requirements currently satisfied by RFC4130 (AS2) by mapping those requirements onto the Web services platform.

In summary the AS4 Profile provides the marketplace an entry-level on-ramp to begin utilizing their internal SOA platforms for external B2B messaging while taking on some of the more complicated aspects of Web services.

The public review starts today, 25 April 2009, and ends 24 June 2009. This is an open invitation to comment.

Comments may be submitted to the TC by any person through the use of the OASIS TC Comment Facility which can be located via the button marked "Send A Comment" at the top of that page, or directly at:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/comments/index.php?wg_abbrev=ebxml-msg

AS4 defines profile of OASIS ebMS v3.0 for B2B and Web Services

2009-04-03T22:30:00.000-04:00

AS4, a new Web Services messaging standard, defines a simplified approach to securely exchanging business documents using Web Services. It is a profile of the OASIS ebMS 3.0 specification and has evolved over the last two years through work done by the leading business to business messaging software companies and Drummond Group.

The challenge for the adoption of secure inter-business communication using Web Services is the complexity of options and the lack of interoperability between products. AS4 simplifies the technical approach to Web Services B2B by merging the best aspects of one of the most successful Internet messaging standards, AS2, with the Web services-centric nature of ebMS 3.0. The white paper explains the business benefits of AS4 for both users and implementers along with a technical overview of the specification and the technology framework that supports it.

For free download of Drummond Group white paper, go to http://www.drummondgroup.com/html-v2/register-as4paper.html

CCTS core component dictionary tools

2009-04-03T22:27:00.001-04:00

The latest release of jCAM editor now supports UN/CEFACT CCTS in the dictionary generation tools.

From any XSD schema you have ingested into jCAM, or XML template you have built using the editor - you can pick the Tools menu options to automatically build the CCTS dictionary of those core components.

Then simply open the generated dictionary XML in Excel as a spreadsheet workbook to review those core component details.

There is also a compare tool to cross reference between a dictionary and an exchange template's components.

Plus you can merge dictionary files - so you can build a complete core component library across a set of domain schemas.

These provide invaluable tools for validating and verifying the business information details in your exchange transactions and aligning across exchanges for better interoperability.

Further editor tools are planned to exploit these foundation CCTS core component capabilities for reusable content assembly into exchange transactions.

You can download the latest jCAM editor from:
http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/camprocessor

and find further resources at http://www.jcam.org.uk

News - March 29th, 2009

Quorum Announces Revenue Milestone

2009-03-14T22:50:00.001-04:00

Migrations revenue is generated from selling services and hardware to bring existing customers up to the current technology platform so that they can convert to the latest version of XSELLERATOR(tm) and the IDMS program offered by General Motors. Currently, of Quorum's 230 customers, more than 190 customers are now migrated. Expectations are for the balance of customers to migrate prior to the end of Q2 2009.

Integration Services with General Motors continues to move forward with several key Parts integration points being released in the U.S. in February, specifically:
- Parts Workbench "Material Returns and Part Claims" (U.S.) is the replacement functionality from the previous RAPID system that was decommissioned by GM.

- Parts Invoice Parts Workbench "Parts Invoice" (U.S.) is a new ebXML interface that will all dealerships to view and print invoice reports in XSELLERATOR.

- Parts Workbench "Parts Shipment" (U.S.) involves integration between GM and XSELLERATOR with regard to parts shipment information.

A number of new integration functions have already been deployed in the past few months in the U.S., including Parts Order, Parts Availability, SPAC Inquiry and Parts Information. These integration points create substantial efficiencies and move Parts staff towards conducting most of their job functions using XSELLERATOR.

For more information see Quorom's full press release:
http://www.stockhouse.com/News/USReleasesDetail.aspx?n=7217644

Drummond Group Completes its Eighth ebMS 2.0 Interoperability Certification

2009-03-14T22:48:00.001-04:00

Drummond Group Inc. (DGI) today announced the completion of its 8th ebMS 2.0 Interoperability test, making available 4 newly certified products from Axway, Cleo Communications, IBM, and Inovis.

Interoperability certification assures customers that products meet the standard and work together, thereby reducing implementation time and related costs.

For more details see:
http://www.drummondgroup.com/html-v2/pr_01_19_09.html

Connecting Business Process Specifications with Business Event Monitoring

2009-03-14T22:42:00.002-04:00

An article on ebXML.xml.org discusses the capabilities of ebXML Business Processes and ebBP V2.0 - "the OASIS ebBP 2.0 standard [] main design goal [] was to support specifications of collaborative process contracts, especially quality-of-service agreements, but also the basic logic that governs exchanging business data—what response documents can be sent to a request document, what sequences are allowed, when processes can be done concurrently, what yields success, what yields failure, and so on".

The article provides great insights in the challenges of modern business processes and how to begin addressing them.

Use cases are examined including: "The OASIS TaMie TC is investigating ways to monitor or test that event traces of processes conform or violate various test assertions. The major goal of the TC is to define an events scripting language for running against event “boards” to check that events satisfy certain conditions. One subproject in this group has been to explore sources of domain knowledge that can provide inputs that can be compiled into these event testing scripts, creating an automated and standardized way of setting up aspects of Business Activity Monitoring (BAM)."

For full details see:
http://ebxml.xml.org/blog/connecting-business-process-specifications-with-business-event-monitoring

Rural at risk young people support service using ebXML in Holland

2008-11-28T13:41:00.005-05:00

Dutch child welfare services are using ebXML messaging across 45 municipalities and 1 hospital to bring better care services to at risk youngsters in Holland. Over 7,000 care workers are connected on the "Verwijsindex" service and can share basic information. In conformance with privacy laws no personal information on the people or families are stored. The system however allows care workers to coordinate and check the status on youngsters who are up to 23 years old.

The system will be expanded to more regions next and Minister Rouvoet was on hand for the official launch of the new service in The Hague.

The ebXML approach brings many advantages for rural workers accessing systems remotely.

The official press release (in Dutch) can be found here.

Covus announces ebXML messaging adapter for BizTalk server

2008-10-28T22:47:00.004-04:00

Made available on general release at the end of September, the Covast ebXML Messaging Service Adapter allows Microsoft BizTalk Server systems to conduct B2B transactions using the global ebXML standard.

"With a growing presence in the B2B industry, ebXML (Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language) offers more standardized and secure partner communications across the internet than traditional XML-based communications. For this reason, ebXML has become the standard of choice for many government organizations, as well as organizations in the manufacturing and energy sector. The new Covast ebXML Messaging Service Adapter gives Microsoft BizTalk Server users the ability to easily conduct B2B communications using this standard".

Technology wise the ebMS support in Covast provides an ebMS Send Pipeline that takes care of the assembly, enveloping, encryption and signing of messages according to the ebMS V2 standard. Actual transport takes place by means of the in-the-box BizTalk HTTP or SMTP adapters.

On the inbound, the ebMS Receive Pipeline takes care of signature verification, decryption, de-enveloping and disassembly of transactions according to the ebMS V2 standard.

Configuration of the ebMS adapter can be done from within the BizTalk Administration console. The adapter also has features to import meta data specified as standard ebXML CPP (Collaboration Protocol Profile) CPA (Collaboration Protocol Agreement) documents. This automatically generates the right BizTalk artifacts.

For more details see the Covast ebMS white paper.

Covast is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and brings over 12 years of experience in support of their ebXML solution. Covast European headquarters is in the Netherlands and its U.S. headquarters in Atlanta. For more information, visit http://www.covast.com.

CAM achieves landmark 5,000 downloads and 20 daily on SourceForge.net

2008-10-11T14:44:00.003-04:00

I'm very proud to announce that the jCAM XML editor and validation engine implementation of OASIS CAM v1.1 available on SourceForge has passed 5,000 downloads and this week has been averaging 20 downloads a day.

http://sourceforge.net/project/stats/?group_id=97941&ugn=camprocessor

This is a huge tribute to the dedication and hard work of Martin Roberts particularly in building the Eclipse based jCAM implementation.We have also added a suite of XSLT tools to the jCAM package that provide the ability to ingest and manipulate XSD schemas along with producing automated documentation and XML test case instances. These have enabled us to work with a selection of industry standard schemas enhancing and crosschecking and validating the XSD schema work.

The jump start tutorial is available here:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/29381/EML%20and%20jCAM%20tutorial.pdf

And the project resource site is: http://www.jcam.org.uk/

The jCAM engine can be integrated with an ebXML messaging solution to provide a variety of content handling services.

Flame Computing showcase ebXML V3 ebMS features

2008-08-02T23:24:00.004-04:00

Long time supporter of RosettaNet based exchanges Flame Computing has now added ebXML messaging to their product solution - Flame Messaging Server (FMS).

With over 2,000 installations already in place the new ebXML v3 features add significant new capabilities to support distributed messages exchanges for their customers. These include
Reliable Message Delivery with Message Ordering; Digital Signature and Payload Encryption; Non-repudiation of origin and receipt; Transport Protocol Mappings include HTTP and SMTP; Message Push and Pull; Message Partition Channels – allows prioritisation of
messages; Web Services compatibility and backward compatibility to ebXML Messaging Services Version 2 as needed.

The FMS from Flame Computing has implemented compliance with OASIS ebXML Messaging
Services Version 3 as outlined in the OASIS ebXML Messaging Services Version 3.0: Part 1, Core Features Committee Specification 02 dated 12 July 2007.

Flame is offering an evaluation version of the Flame Message Server (FMS) which is available for download from http://flame.co.za/downloads/FMS_RC_4.0.4_17.zip

An evaluation license (acquirable from Flame) is required to run the server, but configuration and perusal may be performed at a leisurely pace - contact Flame for more details of their evaluation process.

For more product information see the Flame product brochure and the Flame Computing website.

CECID H2O ebMS - August 1st release adds many new capabilities

2008-08-02T23:08:00.002-04:00

The CECID team has released a new H2O with significant enhancements. Standard database support now includes Oracle, MySQL, as well as Postgres with out-of-the-box installer configuration options.

For developers a whole new set of code samples are introduced including how to use the webservice interface provided by H2O. The old loopback self test has gone and been replaced by a much more comprehensive connectivity test with selectable transaction examples.

This new release has benefited from significant feedback and code contributions from the developer community worldwide.

The latest H2O can be downloaded here.

SEEBURGER Releases ebXML Message Service Adapter

2008-05-19T23:18:00.002-04:00

SEEBURGER Inc. has released an ebXML Message Service (ebMS) adapter for its suite of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) solutions, including the standalone SEEBURGER Business Integration Server as well as the SEEBURGER EDI add-on for use with the SAP NetWeaver® Process Integration (SAP NetWeaver PI) offering. The new adapter, available immediately from SEEBURGER, is designed for organizations that are adopting the ebMS communications protocolneutral method for exchanging electronic business messages.

SEEBURGER has already delivered the solution for its customers in the automotive industry and in the agro-chemical industry.

The Mosaic Company, one of the world’s leading producers and marketers of concentrated phosphate and potash crop nutrients for the global agriculture industry, has selected SEEBURGER’s ebXML HTTP Adapter for SAP NetWeaver PI as the tool to exchange messages with key agricultural manufacturers and distributors as part of the Crop Nutrition Connectivity (CNC) project.

“ebXML and its ebMS message transport protocol are emerging as a potentially important force in e-business, so it was imperative that we support ebMS to ensure that we can continue to meet all of our customers’ EDI and B2B needs,” said Bill Reeves, Vice President of Strategy and Marketing, SEEBURGER Inc.

Other consortiums that are moving to the ebMS specification for message transport include papiNET, a group dedicated to establishing and maintaining global electronic business transaction standards for the paper and forest industry, and RosettaNet, the consortium dedicated to the development and deployment of e-business standards for the IT industry.

Originally launched in 1986 to provide integration solutions to the automotive industry in Germany, SEEBURGER today is ranked among the top business-to-business gateway providers by leading industry analysts, and serves more than 7,500 customers in more than 50 countries and over 15 industries through its flagship B2B Gateway and related products and services.

For more information please visit the SEEBURGER website.

Press contact is:
Monisha Mills
SEEBURGER Inc.
(678) 638-4884
m.mills@seeburger.com

Blinksale Invoice integration with H2O ebMS

2008-05-08T14:06:00.002-04:00

Web based invoicing meets B2B messaging integration with Hermes H2O ebMS!

This article describes how to interface to the Blinksale invoice system from H2O using the REST API that Blinksale provides.

A Java module interfaces to the Blinksale site - and handles the invoice exchange with Hermes H2O.

This handy interface supports the following functions:

Determine which of the invoice is ready to be sent in Blinksale
Retrieve the invoice from blinksale
Invoke H2O through the web service interface and have the invoice delivered through ebMS (or AS2 as you desire)
Update the tag of the invoice from open to close if an acknowledgement is received.

More information is available from the article here.

OASIS issues Call for Participation in new ebCore TC

2008-03-04T13:14:00.000-05:00

All interested parties are invited to participate in the new OASIS ebXML Core (ebCore) Technical Committee.

This group will manage clarifications, modifications, and enhancements for ebXML specifications that are completed or transitioned to it.

The ebCore TC may also produce new conformance profiles and adjunct documents complementing existing specifications.

It will explore synergies with UN/CEFACT, WS-* specifications and SOA best practices.

TC proposers include representatives of Axway, Boeing, Fujitsu, and others.

A TC chair or two co-chairs will be elected at the first meeting, which will be held by teleconference on 4 April.

http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/tc-announce/200803/msg00000.html

B2B "Swallow" configuration test facility site launched for ebMS / AS2 messaging

2008-03-01T15:40:00.003-05:00

One of the perennial problems with setting up B2B systems is knowing if your communications infrastructure is configured correctly and actually able to exchange messages across the internet.

When you cannot connect to your partners system is it something they have wrong, or is it your system?

What if there was an automated reference site publically available where you could test your setup to make sure everything is working correctly?

This is something the B2B community has waited for a long while for - and finally thanks to the Hermes project in Hong Kong and the H2O server solution this is now available!

The H2O testing server (a.k.a. Swallow) is a web-based platform for testing messaging of any client installed with H2O, using ebMS or AS/2 protocols. It acts as a standardized, user-friendly, and comprehensive testing suite for testing of and learn about the H2O capabilities and features. At the Swallow site, a web-based online form is provided to create an interoperability profile and that then provides you access to the dashboard control panel.

After setting up, users can send their testing messages from their message gateway to Swallow. In turn, Swallow will send responses back to the users' message gateway, notifying them the message status and reporting error messages if any. All these network exchanges are logged and details displayable through Swallow's web control panel for verifying and monitoring the message connectivity. In short, Swallow helps users to install H2O more effectively and provides an Internet-based host to test their H2O deployment is working correctly.

You can try this yourself from:

http://community.cecid.hku.hk/swallow/

and by installing the H2O server system on your local system or a comparable ebMS or AS/2 client that is compatible with H2O.

New Certified ebXML from IBM, TIBCO, Axway, Inovis, Generix and Cleo

2008-01-26T21:25:00.000-05:00

The adoption of ebXML messaging for automotive retail applications continues to gather momentum in 2008 as the leading industry solution vendors all certify their products as compliant with the V2.5 standard and interoperable with each other.

The Drummond Group certification process has been passed by these 6 vendors in Q4 of 2007 and the results announced this January. Products certified include the latest IBM WebSphere Partner Gateway v 6.1 as IBM looks to consolidate its presence in the automotive marketplace along with secure government interchange applications. TIBCO and Axway have similarly upgraded their ebXML offerings while automotive solutions providers Inovis, Generix and Cleo round out the group.

Important new capabilities have also been demonstrated including GZIP compression for large messages, XML encryption and SSL authentication, and DSA Signature Algorithms for signing content.

Automotive Retail Profile (formerly known as the STAR profile)

The Automotive Retail Profile is a profile test designed specifically for GZIP-based compression. The profile is based on recommendations from the Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail (STAR) consortium. The Automotive Retail Profile is appropriate for cross-industry use where compression of large messages is desired.

XML Encryption Profile (formerly known as the PHIN profile)

The XML Encryption Profile enables XML encryption and SSL client authentication. Initially, it was proposed by and is used by the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention in the CDC's Public Health Information Network. The XML Encryption Profile is appropriate for cross-industry use where message level encryption and client authentication are desired.

DSA Signature Algorithm

The ebMS 2 specification recommends the use of the DSAwithSHA1 algorithm for digitally signing ebMS messages. Historically this ebMS certification event has used the RSAwithSHA1 algorithm because of its widespread use in the marketplace. However, since the ebMS specification does recommend the use of DSA, this certification event offered an optional test to certify the interoperability of the use of DSAwithSHA1 digital signatures over both HTTP and HTTPS.

New ebMS v3.0 provides service harmonization for SOA message transport layer and B2B

2007-10-21T16:40:00.000-04:00

OASIS, the international open standards consortium, announced October 16th that its members have approved ebXML Messaging Services (ebMS) version 3.0 as an OASIS Standard.

The V3.0 specification provides a raft of new features that enable extended B2B interchanges and support for SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) message transport layer services.

Included in this is support for profiles called pModes that allow
templates of interchange patterns to be defined and used by
interchange participants.

Additionally V3.0 now includes capability to use WS-Security, WS-Reliability, and the WS-ReliableMessaging OASIS Standards with ebMS.

"It has become critical for all partners - in particular small and medium size enterprises- of a supply chain to be able to handle differences in message flow capacity, intermittent connectivity, lack of static IP addresses, and firewall restrictions. ebMS 3.0 was designed to address all these requirements," explained Ian Jones of British Telecommunications plc, chair of the OASIS ebMS Technical Committee.

Also - ebMS V3.0 fully supports the SOA approach of neutral transport services - by enabling versatile exchanges that handle XML and legacy electronic business systems that use traditional syntaxes, such as EDI, ASC X12, or HL7.

The ability to support context and pluggable data service layer components further enhances the SOA capabilities.

Additionally ebMS V3.0 can be used with business process technology including OASIS ebXML BPSS V2.0.4 and OASIS BPEL systems.

Several industry domains have declared their support for the new ebMS V3.0 including AIAG automotive group and the HL7 healthcare standards community.

Particularly important for these communities is allowing smaller customers to securely engage in ebXML business-quality messaging without needing a 24-by-7 Web server. The new push-pull capabilities allow loosely coupled interchanges with
remote partners without needing fulltime connectivity. Payload shipment can also
be done as a series of small interchanges which permits use of cheaper
limited bandwidth communications.

"We feel these enhancements will increase its adoption and are pleased to have participated in the endeavor," said Dave Bennett, CTO at Axway.

Full technical details of the new specification are available from the http://docs.oasis-open.org/ebxml-msg website.

CECID H2O ebMS - Community Site Launched

2007-08-22T08:53:00.000-04:00

The Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID) at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) have announced the launch of Hermes Messaging Gateway v2.0 (H2O) Community Website to enhance support services to users.

In just two months since its release the H2O messaging system has already been downloaded and adopted by developers and users from over 40 economies around the world.

In response to such overwhelming support CECID has launched a new Community Site to channel the valuable feedback received daily via the mailing list cecid-hermes2@googlegroups.com into a formal resource center for adopters.

The Community Site provides technical information and articles covering everything from configuration hints and tips, fixes and patches, through to general usage of H2O on different platforms.

The first version of Hermes was released in 2002 and has since become a popular and award-winning open source solution for organizations to exchange information in ebXML Messaging (ebMS) or Applicability Specification 2 (AS2) formats with their business partners. The latest version, H2O (H-two-oh), replaces two predecessors (H2CE and H2EE) with additional tools and a full set of documentation to make configuration and administration easy.

H2O and its source code (http://community.cecid.hku.hk/index.php/product/download/download_h2o/) are released under GNU General Public License Version 2.

CECID’s VARs offer professional support services. For more information, requests can be sent to enquiry@cecid.hku.hk.

Latest freebXML Registry V3.1 released

2007-08-19T23:00:00.000-04:00

Delivered after one year of community refinements and enhancements the new version 3.1 provides a near, feature complete implementation of Registry Full conformance profile for the OASIS ebXML Registry 3.0 standard [ebRR] (the only missing feature is support for Single Sign On (SSO) based on the Registry SAML Profile).

The freebXML Registry also provides a feature complete implementation of level 1 conformance profile of the Java API for XML Registries API [JAXR].

Also included are implementation of two profiles of ebXML Registry:
- ebXML Registry Profile for WSDL
- ebXML Registry Profile for WSRP Remote Portlets

Support and consulting services are available from several companies - more details available from the project site: http://sourceforge.net/forum/forum.php?forum_id=726337

Webswell Connect V2.1 SOA and ebXML solution released

2007-08-19T22:51:00.000-04:00

The Webswell Connect 2.1, an open source SOA, ebXML and AS2 integration tool was released Friday. The new release has a selection of improvements and new features including:

1. Built-in support for HSQLDB as a alternative database system to the original PostgreSQL.

2. The included Webswell Dispatcher has been optimized to work much faster including improved handling ofAS2 and ebXML Registry Repository messages.

3. Upgraded installer with improved MS Windows platform installation process.

Webswell Connect is a complete framework for e-business based on the ebXML, AS2 and SOA standards. It is used as an integration framework for heterogeneous business environments and for integration to legacy systems. With its messaging and Registry features it is a basic building block for enabling SOA solutions.

Webswell Connect is all open source software and licensed under GNU GPL. Commercial technical support is available from Webswell Inc. For more details see http://www.webswell.com/

HL7 V3 Transport Specification for review and ballot using ebXML ebMS and CPPA

2007-08-01T14:32:00.000-04:00

The new work in ebXML for messaging and CPPA is garnering more adoption work and for good reason. A mature framework for B2B that is also able to offer abstraction layer support of definitions for SOA transport services across Web service exchanges as well.

You can find the HL7 documents for the latest release here:
http://www.hl7.org/v3ballot2007sep/html/infrastructure/transport/transport-ebxml.htm

This HL7 document is being put forth for review and consideration for a committee ballot as a normative standard.

ISO Focus Article - "ebXML - Cutting costs and simplifying processes for business"

2007-07-28T16:30:00.001-04:00

The latest edition of the ISO Focus Journal for July/August features an article on ebXML by Alan Kotok, Managing Editor, Science Careers. The ISO Focus July edition theme is on "enabling eBusiness".

For more information see: http://www.iso.org/iso/en/commcentre/isofocus/2007/july.html

The article provides an overview of the five components of the ISO 15000 ebXML specifications and commercial project uses and vendor products. An introduction to the history of ebXML, how it evolved through the .COM downturn and to today along with details of the first open source implementation - the "Hermes" project. Article is rounded out with useful resource links and sources.

Webswell Inc. provides fully customizable ebXML Registry/Repository

2007-07-17T18:41:00.000-04:00

The lastest release from Webswell includes an enhanced registry system with client-side components that provide APIs that allow seamless integration of ebXML Registry/Repository with legacy software systems.

The client-side interfaces support both Java or C/C++ and can be used to manage all Registry/Repository content programmatically without manual intervention, observing all security and access control rules.

The ebXML Registry/Repository is suitable for usage in a wide range of situations, for example:

SOA Governance and Repository of Record
As a web services registry allowing web services publishing, discovery and query.
It can be used as a sophisticated storage of digital documents with automated metadata creation for easy context-based searches.
It can be used as a highly efficient implementation of various specific XML-based standards such as FpML, HL7, STAR etc (online live registry available at Webswell.com).

Automated validation, cataloging and classification of stored documents significantly increase efficiency of data management and information searching.

For more information visit the Webswell main website - http://www.webswell.com

OASIS approves CAM v1.1 standard for transaction exchange validation and support

2007-06-19T22:50:00.000-04:00

New OASIS standard aids implementation of ebXML transaction exchanges.

CAM provides an open, XML-based system for using business rules to define, validate, and compose specific business documents from generalized schema elements and structures.

CAM also provides the foundation for creating industry libraries and dictionaries of schema elements and business document structures to support business process needs.

"CAM has been described as a Swiss army knife for XML structures," said David Webber, chair of the OASIS Content Assembly Mechanism (CAM)Technical Committee. "That's because CAM addresses the three issues that are crucial for automated information integration. It delivers the capability to design transactions consistently, to document their usage clearly, and to drive software that can apply rules and test information content correctly.

"CAM can be used wherever manipulation or validation of information content structures is required. The most widely used application is the validation of content passing through a messaging system, where CAM ensures that the information received is compatible with the supported business systems. CAM can also direct the creation or processing of transactions in a business process engine or be deployed as a Web service to allow trading partners to pre-validate XML instances before using them in message exchanges."

Before a Web service can exchange XML data between applications, the information usually needs to be validated and transformed," explainedPatrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. "CAM offers a new way to accomplish this by using specialized templates that allow contextual business rules to be applied to any XML structure. These business rules can be used to validate the structure or to transform XML data to fit a specified form.

Full text of press release is available here:

http://www.oasis-open.org/news/oasis-news-2007-06-19.php

German Health Insurance Case Study in ebXML for medical aid devices supply

2007-05-29T14:12:00.000-04:00

The German Health Insurance company Deutsche Betriebskrankenkasse (DBKK) has implemented the application Electronic Platform for Medical Aids (EHP), which manages the organisation of business processes between the insurance company and their suppliers. In particular it handles the workflow for the order and delivery of medical devices and aids from medical technology companies.

The process includes:

􀂄 accept prescriptions for medical aids
􀂄 research medical aid products
􀂄 deliver and receive cost estimates from contract and cooperation partners
􀂄 approve requests for medical aids
􀂄 control shipment of medical aid products
􀂄 functionalities for quality control of the business process

You can read the full case study here:

http://www.ebxmlforum.net/documents/ebxml_case_study_erweitert_final.pdf

Hong Kong CECID - Hermes Celebrates 5th Birthday with New H2O Launch

2007-05-11T09:49:00.000-04:00

The University of Hong Kong (HKU) announced a new open source version of Hermes Messaging Gateway v2.0 (H2O) on 1 June 2007, to replace the two current editions of Hermes (H2CE and H2EE). Thanks to project funding from the HKSAR Government's Innovation & Technology Commission, more features and functionality of Hermes are available as open source to users and developers of business-to-business integration and Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).

Besides supporting ebXML Messaging Service (ebMS) and Applicability Specification 2 (AS2), H2O provides additional tools and a full set of documentation to make configuration, and administration more easy. The new release includes an installation wizard, web-based GUI administration tool, message status query capabilities, along with documentation of an installation guide, configuration guide, admin' tool user guide as well as the plug-in development guide.

All these capablities enhance the ability for system-to-system (S2S) solution providers to utilize Hermes for their applications B2B exchange needs.

More information is available from the official press release - and the technology download site.

H2O and its source code (http://community.cecid.hku.hk/index.php/product/download/download_h2o/) are released under GNU General Public License Version 2. Users and developers can get community support through the mailing list cecid-hermes2@googlegroups.com. Professional support is provided by CECID’s VARs and can be requested through email enquiry@cecid.hku.hk.

OASIS hosts ebXML webinars - June-fest from 4th to 7th

2007-05-09T16:16:00.000-04:00

Learning about the ebXML work and how your organization can leverage the technologies available for open standards eBusiness has just got a whole lot easier.

The experts behind the ebXML work are providing a week of webinars aimed at providing technologists the insights they need to evaluate and start using the ebXML solution set.

The resources to enable adoption of ebXML are now more mature and freely available than at anytime before. Come find out how your organization can benefit from adopting foundation technology that is proven and reliable in driving core business systems worldwide.

Each daily live webinar is timed to accommodate the global world - 3:00PM GMT, 12:00AM Tokyo, 8:00AM San Francisco, 11:00AM Boston, 4:00PM London.

For details on each day's focus topic see the webinar resource site.

Open webinar on ebBP and the importance of eBusiness collaboration

2007-05-09T12:41:00.000-04:00

Upcoming on Tuesday, June 5, 2007 at 11:00 AM EDT - the OASIS ebXML Business Process technical committee will host a webinar entitled "ebXML Business Process (ebBP) v2.0.4 Standard Overview".

The ebBP (BPSS) specification is a standard business process definition syntax. The ebBP TC invites you to attend an open webinar to learn more about ebBP and the importance of eBusiness collaboration.

Listen to experts and stakeholders talk about the value of and the benefit from ebBP.

Marketplaces discussed will include health care, financial services and eGovernment.

For all the Webinars in the June series - see the resource site here.

TamGroup releases NexusE2E 3.2 solution as open source

2007-05-09T11:32:00.000-04:00

The TamGroup Inc announced the availability of their acclaimed Ag eMessenger that has driven the agricultural chemicals (RAPID) adoption of ebXML messaging now as open source.

The new solution includes client side tools (originally for small farmers) as well as sophisticated server capabilities leveraged by major chemical companies. NexusE2E can be quickly configured to support any industry transactions and used to implement B2B supplychain needs.

The Trading Partner Wizard walks you through the process of adding Trading Partners, prompting you to enter all the required information in a few short steps.

The new graphical display shows NEXUSe2e messaging traffic and status. User configurable NEXUS Dashboard sports charts indicating Conversation Status, Message Status & Volume, and Message breakdown by Choreography.

For more information see the NexusE2E website.

ebXML for Geographic Registry and cool Geospatial services!

2007-05-09T10:40:00.000-04:00

Galdos Systems Inc are successfully using ebXML Registry to implement their INdicio™ product.

The INdicio™ Geographic Registry is an e-business registry for geographic information and geospatial services. It plays the role of matchmaker in a service-oriented architecture, enabling the dynamic discovery of web-based services or geographic data. Supporting the OGC extensions to ebRIM (the ebXML Registry Information Model), INdicio is a powerful solution for managing shared resources, such as service descriptions, XML (and GML) schemas, definitions of coordinate reference systems, map styles, geographic data sets, imagery and sensor data records.

An essential capability of any cataloguing service is the ability to organize and categorize the information. Administrators can define custom classification schemes for registered objects and create arbitrary associations between pairs of registered objects.

INdicio provides flexible, programmatic searches based on OGC Filter expressions and W3C XPath expressions. This flexibility is essential for supporting fine-grained queries, broad taxonomy-based searches and spatial queries.

More information and a free 30-day trial are available from the Galdos web site.

Galdos customers include the UK Ministry of Defense, Shell Oil, Arriyadh Development Agency in Saudi Arabia, NATO, and the US Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense.

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

2007-04-18T15:34:00.000-04:00

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

2007-04-18T14:59:00.000-04:00

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

2007-04-10T12:18:00.000-04:00

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.

Comparing the features for B2B of ebXML ebMS, AS2/EDIINI, VAN, WS-I/WSDl web services

2007-03-29T12:26:00.000-04:00

New resource that provides comparisons for B2B between the transport options available.

Decision makers can now review the strengths and weaknesses for B2B of ebXML ebMS, AS2/EDIINI, VAN, WS-I/WSDl web services and apply their own decision weighting criteria to obtain an overall suitability scoring for their own use.

This an open resource provided by OASIS technical committee members to foster better understanding of the parameters surrounding B2B technology use.

IBM adds native ebXML v2.0 support to WebSphere v6.1!

2007-03-23T09:28:00.000-04:00

IBM announced yesterday that it has released v6.1 of WebSphere and top of the list of new features are all ebXML!

The IBM developer site notes on the new release headline these "Whats New" features:

ebXML Messaging Service (ebMS) 2.0 used in Canada, Europe, and Asia, and in healthcare and auto industries, and support for the ebMS 2.0 Basic Profile
ebMS 2.0 XML Encryption Profile, designed to test message-based encryption. The technical details of this profile are based on requirements and methods originally defined by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), which uses ebMS in its Public Health Information Network applications
ebMS 2.0 Automotive Retail Profile, based upon requirements and recommendations from the STAR consortium (Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail), which includes testing of gzip-based compression
ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement (CPPA), which supports the import of CPPAs to automate the exchange and implementation of structured trading partner agreements

They have also made enhancements to the trading partner management and import/export - presumably to support the use of CPA profiles.

Overall this looks like a very significant release with enhanced B2B capabilities for messaging, transformation, business process and more and that is likely to accelerate customers migration to the V6.1 release and provide them with ability to exploit ebXML.

OrionSMG integrates CAM templates and jCAM validation services

2007-03-22T15:14:00.000-04:00

Users of the OrionSMG ebXML messaging server can now also take advantage of validation templates to handle their transaction content checking requirements.

For more information see: http://www.orionsmg.com/wiki/doku.php?id=jcam_plugin

OrionSMG is available for Windows, Mac OS X and *nix platforms.

Ruby and ebXML messaging - Announcement of HefeWeizen, a Free and Open Source Software ebMS BETA

2007-03-22T15:08:00.000-04:00

The beta release of HefeWeizen for Ruby - that supports ebXML ebMS (Messaging Service Specification version 2.0) and CPA (Collaboration Protocol Agreement and Profile Specification version 2.0) was made today.

The main resource website is : http://dev.havanawave.com/repos/HefeWeizen for those interested in trying this early release for themselves.

Features include:

ebMS 2.0 support
Reliable messaging
XML digital signature
XML encryption
HTTP and HTTP(s) support (server and client authentication)
SMTP (in planning)
ebCPPA 2.0
Configuration of trading partners via ebXML CPA's

Requirements:

Ruby Programming Language (http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/)
some Ruby gems (installer checks dependencies)
Linux/Unix
uses libxml2, libxmlsec1 C libraries

Status: Beta

T-Mobile: ebXML use to double in 2007 - White Paper

2007-03-11T21:00:00.000-04:00

As of December 2006, T-Mobile International has been operating a production ebXML-based B2B gateway for over two years. The number of business partners connected to the gateway is expected to double in 2007, as the system will be used to serve more of the geographies in which T-Mobile operates.

The gateway currently processes approximately one thousand ebXML B2B messages per hour from ten business partners of T-Mobile and other business units of Deutsche Telekom, T-Com, and T-Systems.

The original requirements were for "... the ability to exchange business data in any format (XML, EDI, PDF), without pre-defined limitations in message size in a reliable and secure fashion among T-Mobile and its business partners, using an open standard implemented in commercial off-the-shelf products". The ebXML solution from Axway (formally Cyclone Commerce) was selected for T-Mobile use.

The new OASIS case study on the T-Mobile experience notes - "One of the key benefits is that while ebXML is a powerful technology, it is at the same time minimally intrusive to existing applications. This means that existing systems and exchanges can be made to benefit from a reliable and secure ebXML infrastructure easily, with limited or no changes to back-end enterprise applications".

The report notes in summary: "In retrospect, the overall experience with ebXML at T-Mobile has been very positive. If the decision would have to be made today, T-Mobile would again select ebXML".

You can read the full inside story to the T-Mobile / Deutsche Telekom experience with ebXML in the OASIS commissioned case study white paper.

New ebXML messaging OrionSMG V3.0 announced by EMIS

2007-02-27T11:55:00.000-05:00

Egton Medical Information Systems Ltd (EMIS Ltd) have announced the general release of the OrionSMG ebXML messaging system V3.

The OrionSMG is an open source implementation (OSS) of ebXML messaging v2.0 specification and is available from SourceForge OrionSMG project area.

The tool provides a secure message gateway for transporting ebXML, SOAP and custom message formats. It can act in both intermediary and processing MHS roles to provide end-to-end reliable messaging.

The program runs natively on Linux, OS X, and Windows with ODBC/PostgreSQL database support.

For more information see the EMIS implementation sites - http://www.emis-online.com and the UK doctor / patient resource site www.patient.co.uk

Webswell announces availability of Microsoft Windows support for ebXML web services integration tools

2007-02-26T12:16:00.000-05:00

The latest release of WebSwell Connect now resolves the setup and deployment to a Windows platform for the ebXML web services integration suite.

Included in the all open source solution is :
- ebXML messaging, WS web services and AS2-compliant messaging system Hermes 2
- the ebXML Registry and Repository 3.0 + CVS updates for businessobjects
- demonstration, simulation and testing utilities
- multiplatform java installer
- improved dispatcher and routing services

For more information see the download package available from Webswell.

Adoption of ebXML - 2007 review

2007-02-13T10:02:00.000-05:00

Find out how ebXML is improving the daily lives of millions of people by delivering reliable B2B solutions. Alan Kotok gives us a round up of ebXML adoption in government and commercial applications from around the globe.

Danish Government exchange for over 1.2 Million monthly Invoices using ebXML with UBL

2007-02-01T10:33:00.000-05:00

The Danish government has implemented a VAN based B2G and B2B hub system with ebXML for use with electronic invoicing for Denmark. Companies are required by law to use eInvoices (EID).

The EU Best Practice Show case report states: "A condition of EID was that it should not 'force' private companies to go digital. The EID solution is independent of their IT sophistication and is highly flexible. Read-In bureaus ensure this. From 1 February, two such bureaus have been converting paper invoices to electronic ones. Smaller companies can use the Read-In bureaus free of charge, while larger ones are required to pay a modest fee to the bureaus. In April, 2006 the Read-In bureaus share of the market was about 40%".

You can read more about the system details from the EU show case white paper here :-

"Transport of the eInvoices is based on an ebMS (ebXML Message Service) enveloping mechanism built on SOAP (ISO 15000-2). This means that the addressing information, mainly the EAN number, is part of the ebMS header. In contrast to a first solution, where there was no specific envelope format and the VANS providers had to retrieve the EAN location number from within each message, this highly improved the reliability of the system".

New freeb-UBL templates and toolkit announced

2007-01-31T11:17:00.000-05:00

A new community project has been added to the freebXML initiative - focused on providing a toolkit for developers working with the UBL supplychain eBusiness transactions in XML.

The toolkit consists of re-usable templates aimed at providing small business a working subset derived from the main UBL information schemas.

The Cover XML site has an excellent resource page that details the components and capabilities in the toolkit.

The direct link to the freeb-UBL resource center on SourceForge allows you to download the latest version of the toolkit.

The challenge has always been - that while a comprehensive specification like UBL is addressing a huge span of potential uses - including sophisticated nuances of tax payments, supplychain delivery options and ERP system integration - the average user just wants a very simple 80:20 solution for their local eCommerce needs.

The freeb-UBL toolkit is providing the foundation toolkit for this approach.

DOT.NET article - Using Oracle, ebXML B2B and BPEL for Helena Chemical

2007-01-06T23:37:00.000-05:00

The article "BPEL & B2B Synergies Reduce Supplier Enablement Costs" examines the experiences of Oracle customer - Helena Chemical. Building on the existing database foundation at Helena, the implementation team added the Oracle XML gateway, along with ebXML messaging support for the partners' chemical industry exchanges (RAPID).

The ability to integrate using XML, ebXML and BPEL within the Oracle solution framework demonstrated the flexibility and speed of development possible.

For more information on how the team approached the job and delivered on the business needs for Helena - see the full details provided in the article.

The ebXML BP 2.0.4 (BPSS) approved as OASIS standard

2006-12-26T11:07:00.000-05:00

The new ebXML BP specification (BPSS) approval marks a paradigm shift for BPM technology and SOA.

We have waited 5 years for the BPSS specification to finally become a fully approved standard. Why has this taken so long and now it has arrived - what is it delivering?

The original foundation work set during the initial ebXML work was aligned to the UN/CEFACT UMM process - and binary collaborations - this gave it sound grounding. However the underlying UML itself (that UMM is a specialization from) was never designed to provide full BPM modelling support - only localized programming development - and particularly the ability to manage context in a structured way is weakly defined in UML. Failure to reconcile that caused a signficant two year delay prior to the BPSS works transfer to an OASIS ebXML BP TC (technical committee).

All those growing pains however are now behind - and what has emerged is an immensely capable base specification that can form the foundation for SOA networks of collaborating services. To support this there is also an Eclipse based modelling tool for developing BPSS instances using the ebXML BP 2.0.4 specification.

The core capability highlights include:

1) Ability to define context and manage it across the BPM
2) Formal business signals mechanism
3) Business documents can be linked to transaction processing technology
4) Full process modelling via forking and flow control expressions

In today's demanding SOA environments it is crucial that business partners are able to share not just their transaction formats (query/response) - but also the exact processing control - including exception handling (signals) and collaboration control (context) to cover the edge conditions and "what if" systematically - that would otherwise require costly human intervention.

These definitions can now be shared in a formal way between partners - instead of being hidden in process logic within their internal integration systems.

The ebXML BP (BPSS) specification therefore provides a critical component for the development of large scale open cross-enterprise SOA solutions that are inclusive of all partners, large or small.

Norway’s Largest Government Agency Wins IDG’s InfoWorld Top 10 Award for ebXML Messaging Solution

2006-12-15T10:24:00.000-05:00

Norwegian Directorate of Labour and Welfare (NAV), was named a top 10 winner in the healthcare category of the InfoWorld 100 awards for 2006. The annual InfoWorld 100 awards honour the most innovative and cutting-edge implementations of enterprise technology to further business goals. Winners were formally announced in the 13th November 2006 print edition of InfoWorld.

The National Insurance Administration (formerly called Trygdeetaten) is the largest institution under the Norwegian Directorate of Labour and Welfare (NAV) and is responsible for healthcare, old age and disability pensions, and unemployment benefits. NAV initiated a project to replace the proprietary EDI-based communications e-health infrastructure it used to connect to its business partners with one based on open standards.

NAV implemented the Xenos terminalONE Transport software to provide reliable, secure internet based exchange of prescription and reimbursement information between the NIA organisation and 3,000 doctors' offices, pharmacies and hospital organisations. To date it has transported millions of ebXML messages corresponding to transactions totalling well over 10 billion Norwegian Kroner (equivalent to 1.2 billion Euro, or 1.5 billion USD) making it one of the largest ebXML implementations in the world.

For more ebXML case studies see the OASIS ebXML site.

NHS 'Choose & Book' gearing up with ebXML - 16,000 daily transactions

2006-12-12T21:38:00.000-05:00

In 2004 the UK National Health Service NHS adopted ebXML messaging for its mission critical Transactional Messaging Services (TMS) Spine. Anticipated annual message volume by 2010 is over 5,000,000,000 for managing healthcare in the UK from all sources - email, smartcard payments and ebXML.

At the OASIS Adoption Forum in London in November, 2006 the key-note presentation by Dr. Mark Ferrar, Director of Infrastructure, NHS Connecting for Health reported that the 'Choose and Book' system is now generating upward of 16,000 transactions daily with over 1.7 million generated so far this year.

The ebXML messaging is a foundation service as part of the SPINE architecture. Dr. Ferrar gives comprehensive details of the scale of the technology that NHS is implementing and the scope involving already 98% of doctors offices in the UK.

France GESFIM project commits to ebXML infrastructure for Transportation Logistics

2006-12-03T12:44:00.000-05:00

The French GESFIM - Gestion Electronique et Sécurisation du Fret International Multimodal - a project for the French Transportation and Logistics industry - has selected ebXML and CEFACT combined with RFID infrastructure as the basis for developing its implementation technologies. Funding is provided by the French Economy Ministry.

The project has an aggressive timetable and included partners are tasked with a variety of early deliverables to provide the underpinning for implementations within the industry. The total duration for the project is two years.

The GESFIM project description is available here (PDF) and the funding Economy Ministry for Finance and Industry website is here.

Project participants include:

■ ELIT (specialists in logistics and transportation software applications) http://www.elit.fr/
■ AD’MISSIONS (Professional Association of 1200 Consultants in France with expertise in standardization of the electronic exchanges eBusiness and associated technologies for Transport and Logistics. EDI, EDIFACT, XML...) programme Norm@Fret (normalisation Fret et Flotte ) http://www.admissions.fr/index.php
■ CRCI Nord-Pas de Calais. Regional chamber of commerce and industry, supporting the 13 local districts of Nord-Pas de Calais in Normandy, France. The CRCI has many years of logistics support experience. http://www.nordpasdecalais.cci.fr/

Oracle AS Integration B2B tutorial for ebXML / ebMS now online

2006-11-28T11:21:00.000-05:00

Oracle have made available an excellent step-by-step tutorial on configuring their B2B product suite for use with ebXML.

The OracleAS Integration B2B tutorials guide you through the steps to design, deploy, and verify B2B scenarios. After using this tutorial, you should be able to create and deploy your own custom document over ebXML messaging service (ebMS) transaction.

Oracle provides a CPA partner setup and control interface and other tools to allow easy implementation of a full ebMS solution.

The tutorial uses an Acme GlobalChips company as an example and details all the necessary aspects including how to configure your own XML payloads.

The tutorial relates to Oracle Application server (AS) 10g release 2 - 10.1.2

UBL - Universal Business Language Customisations for General Use (by SystML)

2006-11-20T14:47:00.000-05:00

SystML has released to public use a beta implementation of generalizations of UBL transactions.

This is intended as a collaborative community development project. The examples can be viewed from the web site http://www.systml.co.uk/xml/ and include both schemas and XML sample files.

Transactions included are:

Despatch Advice, Invoice, Order Cancellation, Order Change, Order Response, Order Response
Simple, Order, Receipt Advice

and

Application Response, Attached Document, Debit Note, Credit Note, Despatch Advice, Invoice, Order Cancellation, Order Change, Order Response, Order Response Simple, Order, Quotation, Receipt Advice, Remittance Advice, Request For Quotation, Self Billed Credit Note, Self Billed Invoice, Statement, Simple Document.

for more details and business process models for usage see the site.

Oracle upgrade SOA solutions including key ebXML support

2006-10-24T09:44:00.000-04:00

Oracle announced today at their Oracle OpenWorld conference a series of SOA-related upgrades, including the availability of Oracle SOA Suite 10g Release 3.

Included in this release is support for key industry technology standards such as Electronics Product Code (EPCGlobal) for RFID, ebXML (Electronic Business Markup Language for XML), HL7, RosettaNet, EDI X12, EDIFact, EDI AS/2 (EDI over the Internet) and others.

Oracle provides a full ebXML CPA editor (collaboration profile agreement) for quickly configuring partner exchanges in Oracle registry services, and then support for ebMS v1 and ebMS v2 based message exchanges with full integration in the transformation and SOA routing services including the BPEL server module in 10g release 3.

"Standards have always been central to Oracle's product strategy because our customers are looking for simplicity, choice and interoperability in their IT environments," said Thomas Kurian, senior vice president of Oracle Server Technologies, in a statement to eWeek magazine.

The announcement is also carried in CIOL magazine for readers in Asia.

ebXML and AS/2 Integration Broker released in Webswell V2.0.1

2006-10-03T11:41:00.000-04:00

Webswell Inc has announced their release of their latest broker technology incorporating the new Hermes V2 ebXML and AS/2 enabled server.

The Webswell Connect integration tool is made available under Gnu Public License (GPL). It includes Hermes 2 ebxml and AS2 message service handler, dispatcher and ebXML Registry/Repository version 3.0 (OMAR).

As always it includes an installer based on IzPack and all needed supporting software components pre-packaged - (such as Tomcat and PostgreSQL database).

The broker services enabled using Webswell provide a comprehensive feature list to allow management and configuration of XML interchanges with your trading partners.

The current release has completed testing on various linux platforms and Windows testing is proceeding.

The package is available from:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=167017&package_id=203893

More information is available from the Webswell company site.

XSLT Scripts released for generating CPA from BPSS

2006-09-28T10:23:00.000-04:00

The ebXML Business Process (ebBP) to ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement (ebCPPA) transformation project has made available an initial set of scripts under GNU Public License for use in generating CPA agreements.

This project provides a tool (XSLT and scripts) to create ebXML CPP and ebXML CPPA building blocks (XML components that are included in any CPA or CPP that includes a given business process). Further a tool is provided that merges the ebXML CPPA building blocks with a sample CPA to a complete ebXML CPA.

This implementation resulted from the works on the Universal Business Process (UBP) which was done as part of the OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) Small Business Subset (SBS) work.

See http://docs.oasis-open.org/ubl/cs-UBL-1.0-SBS-1.0/ for that committee specification

In addition sample CPA building blocks and maintainable sharable CPA components are available from the OASIS ebXML CPPA committee site:

Using xslt with CPA - http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/20095/CPA-config-using-xslt.zip

and creating concept of CPA-let using XInclude:
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/19878/cpa-let-DESIGN.zip
and
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/19720/cpa-xi.zip

Version 3 release of OMAR ebXML Registry open source

2006-09-12T11:41:00.000-04:00

The FreebXML project has announced the next formal release of their ebXML registry implementation V3.0 final1.

This latest open source release is the culmination of over one years collaborative effort lead by Sun Microsystems and supported by the developer communities in N.America, Europe and Asia.
The OMAR 3.0 Registry middleware toolkit provides feature complete support for the latest OASIS ebXML Registry public specifications and component ISO 15000-4. It enables developers to deploy registry services for their SOA solutions and build user interface solutions around that using open platform technologies.

Registry services are now emerging as one of the key components in extended collaborative ebusiness and web applications providing the ability to coordinate and share information securely in a variety of roles.

Example marque applications using OMAR now include:

Secure medical document sharing for the IHE/XDS community including over 20 vendors of commercial healthcare application products
United Nations project for ebusiness vocabularies
RIDE project from EU providing OWL semantic support
Web service management solutions middleware vendors

An overview of what registry technology is can be found at the project Wiki site.

For more information and to download the latest OMAR 3.0 toolkit visit the project website.

Formal technical details of the work done for the release are reviewed in this InfoQ article.

Healthcare eHealth Record (EHR): IBM donates open source XDS Registry work to OHF

2006-08-15T14:39:00.000-04:00

IBM has announced it is donating the work on client tools for secure information sharing to the OHC project. The donation includes client side support for XDS, PIX, PDQ and ATNA. See http://wiki.eclipse.org/index.php/OHF for details and links to the source code (150,000 lines).

The XDS system (cross-enterprise secure document exchange - XDS) is built using the code-base originally developed by NIST using the ebXML OMAR open source registry toolset (http://www.freebXML.org). Beginning in 2005 the IBM research lab in Israel began integrating the ebXML registry portion of this solution using the OMAR codebase.

The software, contributed to the Eclipse Foundation's Open Healthcare Framework (OHF) project, provides a mechanism to connect isolated "islands" of information that today reside throughout the healthcare system to any Health Information Exchange (HIE). Software developers will also be able to build applications that can aggregate and sift through this information to improve healthcare delivery and research while protecting individual privacy.

The upcoming HIMSS 2007 conference will feature live demonstrations as part of the IHE 2007 Connectathon between participants solutions all using the XDS Registry ebXML technology as a foundation layer. You can find out more details on this event from - http://ohf-dev.blogspot.com/ and the developers involved. In addition to IBM there are more than 20 ISVs involved, including Blueware, CapMed, Mandriva, PossibilityForge, SynSeer and WellLogic.

The OHC solution is also demonstrated at the current first ever Healthcare Day at Linux World Conference & Expo. Full report from that event is available at: http://ohf-dev.blogspot.com/

Additional news coverage can be found in the national technology news media including:

SYS-CON Enterprise Source Magazine: IBM donates code to open source health project (8/10/06) http://opensource.sys-con.com/read/258587.htm

InformationWeek: IBM Donates Code To Help Doctors Share Data (8/10/06) URL: http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=191900503

PodCasts on ebXML 2006 - noted experts interviewed

2006-07-25T15:40:00.000-04:00

A series of PodCasts has been made available by OASIS as part of the 5 year celebration of ebXML.

Recorded in June over two dozen experts internationally in the use and development of ebXML have provided a series of interviews.

Each series focuses on a particular aspect of ebXML - including:

6th ebXML Messaging Interop Announced

2006-07-24T16:28:00.000-04:00

The Drummond Group has announced availability of the latest in its series of interoperability testing certifications for ebXML messaging compliant solutions.

Interoperability certification assures software customers that products meet the standard and work together, thereby reducing implementation time and enabling product choice by features and price.

Use of and ebMS adoption is growing in the automobile sector, as well as in the U.S. public health industry, major government projects in the United Kingdom, The Netherlands and Norway and energy trading applications across the European Union.

Major vendors such as Oracle have recently added support for ebMS in their products and hence the need for continued interoperability certification to ensure software products have fewer bugs and interoperate more smoothly.

For more information contact the Drummond Group.

Draft IHE Actor profiles released for XDS secure exchanges

2006-07-20T14:59:00.000-04:00

A proposal for an OASIS ebBP Profile for IHE Profiles realized within the scope of the IST 027065 RIDE Project(http://www.srdc.metu.edu.tr/webpage/projects/ride/) as a part of the Deliverable D.5.3.1 Contribution to Standardization Efforts sponsored by the European Commission, DG Information Society and Media, eHealth Unit(http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/health/index_en.htm) has been published for community review.

The document describes how to express the IHE Profiles through ebBP language to facilitate the configuration of electronic relationships among IHE Actors and to provide an automated environment to help IHE users and vendors to exchange configuration information electronically and in a standard way.

The eBusiness eXtensible Markup Language (ebXML) Business ProcessSpecification Schema (BPSS) technical specification [ebBP] defines a standard language by which business systems MAY be configured. The ebBP defines generic Business Transactions between the Roles (the Requesting Role and the Responding Role) which exchange documents. The ebBP re-uses these transactions by specializing them in Business Collaborations. IHE Profiles [IHE], on the other hand, defines IHE Actors (which correspond to ebBP Roles) and IHE Transactions (which correspond to ebBP Business Collaborations) and organizes them into IHE Profiles (which correspond to ebBP Business Processes) specific to the healthcare domain. The profile described in this document is not proposing any change to existing IHE Profiles or its existing implementations. Note that ebBP Processes are not executable meaning that you cannot execute them to cause some action; but they are machine processable meaning that you can use the information content by executing a software.

The profile described in the released document is proposing to document the already existing information in IHE profiles in a machine processable way to help with configuration issues.

There are several benefits to be gained in defining IHE Profiles[IHE-ITI-1] through ebBP since ebBP provides standard, concise and machine processable configuration information which can be used in an automated way:

1. Re-usability: When an IHE Transaction is defined as a generic ebBPTransaction, its re-usability is increased. For example, when we define ageneric Patient Identity Feed Transaction [IHE-ITI-2] between two generic roles such as Patient Identity Supplier and Patient Identity Receiver;this transaction can be specialized to Patient Identity Feed Transactionin IHE XDS by setting the Patient Identity Supplier to Patient Identity Source and the Patient Identity Receiver to XDS Registry. The same generic Patient Identity Feed Transaction can be specialized to Patient Identity Feed Transaction in IHE PIX by setting the Patient Identity Supplier to Patient Identity Source and the Patient Identity Receiver to PIX Manager.

As a summary, when IHE defines a new profile which uses an already defined generic transaction, this transaction can be specialized to the new profile to be re-used.

This mechanism is ready in ebBP to be used in a standard way.

2. Configuration Management: The focus of ebXML is on building a framework that makes it possible to automate the creation and the configuration ofelectronic relationship. To achieve this goal, ebXML describes business processes through ebBP and the actors through CPPs (Collaboration-Protocol Profiles) [ebCPPA]. An IHE Actor, on the other hand, is in need of the configuration of its electronic relationship with other IHE Actors. Each IHE Actor needs to discover the other IHE Actors, the other Actor's supported IHE Transactions, the other Actor's role in the Transaction, and the configuration details about how the other Actor sends and receives Messages. For example, in an IHE connectivity marathon (connect-a-thon), the IHE Actors obtain network configuration parameters from an online database quite some time before the connect-a-thon. The ebBP provides all this configuration information needed by the IHE Profiles and helps this information to be discovered and used at run time in real life cases without human intervention.

3. Discovery of Configuration Information: The configuration information, independent of how it is defined, need to be discovered by the involved IHE Actors. When the configuration information is defined through ebBP andCPPAs, ebXML Registry mechanism can be used for discovery. Furthermore,there should be a machine processable mechanism to automatically find out the optional IHE Transactions a specific IHE Actor supports. When IHE Profiles are expressed through ebBP, it becomes possible to specify this by referring to the business process which includes the optional transactions.

4. Facilitating the grouping of the IHE Actors: Since IHE Profiles describe specific use cases, there is a need to combine several IHE Profiles to achieve the required functionality in realizing a real world scenario in the healthcare domain. When IHE Profiles are combined by grouping the relevant IHE Actors, the sequence of the transactions coming from different profiles must be decided. For example, when ATNA Secure Node is grouped with XDS Document Source, Document Repository and Document Registry Actors, the Record Audit Event Transaction (IHE-ITI-20) of ATNA appears between Provide and Register Document Set Transaction (IHE-ITI-15) and Register Document Set Transaction (IHE-ITI-14) of XDS. It is clear that, given the large number of IHE Profiles, determining the order of all the involved transaction manually for every real life scenario is a tedious task.

However it is possible to automate this task by developing software tools to allow users to graphically group the Actors involved, and generating the overall process automatically by using the precedence information among IHE Transactions.

5. Software Tool Support for Configuration: In order to make the process described in the document user friendly, we support it by software tools. We provide public domain software tools to support the following: The ebBP Editor to graphically define IHE Transactions and Profiles. This software is available at:http://freebxmlbp.sourceforge.net/ The IHE-AGT (Actor Grouping Tool) to group IHE Actors graphically and produce the resulting business processes automatically available at http://www.srdc.metu.edu.tr/ihe/tools/iheagt/iheagt.zip. The IHE Configuration Management Tool (IHE-CMT) available at http://www.srdc.metu.edu.tr/ihe/tools/ihecmt/IHECMT_METU_SRDC_180706.zip which consists of the IHE-CPP Editor and the IHE-CPA Editor.The document is organized as follows:

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the rest of this document. Chapter 2 provides a brief overview of the ebBP Business Process Specification and the Collaboration-Protocol Profile (CPP) and AgreementSpecification (CPA). Chapter 3 provides a brief overview of the Integrating HealthcareEnterprise (IHE) Transactions and Profiles. Chapter 4 specifies how to represent IHE profiles in ebBP. Chapter 5 briefly summarizes the public domain ebBP Editor previouslydeveloped by the METU-SRDC Team. Chapter 6 describes how IHE Actors can be grouped using ebBP. Chapter 7 describes how to facilitate the configuration of IHE Profiles byUsing ebBP and CPP. Chapter 8 addresses the metadata configuration issues in IHE XDS. Chapter 9 describes IHE Configuration Management Tool. Chapter 10 summarizes how configuration issues are currently handled in IHEXDS connect-a-thon and provides the envisioned situation. Chapter 11 provides normative and informative references that are used within or relevant to this document.

XmlStylist - New update for ebXML business process modelling editor

2006-07-20T14:12:00.000-04:00

The European Commission funded project RIDE (IST-4-027065-CA) has just released the next upgrade of an open source editor "XmlStylist" for ebXML BPSS based process modelling. The tool can be downloaded from the SourceForge resource site.

The "RIDE" project is a Roadmap for Interoperability of eHealth Systems in Support of COM 356 with Special Emphasis on Semantic Interoperability.

In addition the ebBP Editor User Manual has been also updated to reflect the new features including:

Capability of creating and modifying any valid ebBP instances according to ebBP TechnicalSpecification v2.0.3.
Validation procedure in XmlStylist has been strengthened. After each modification and closure of XmlStylist, the available ebBP instance is subjected to a validation check.
Packages, which are the modular ebBP elements, can be imported to an ebBP instance via XmlStylist.
From Start to Completion (Success and/or Failure), the flow in aBusiness Collaboration can be visualized in the ebBP Editor. This version supports displaying Roles, Business Transaction Activities, Completion elements, and the links between those elements in a Business Collaboration"automatically" after XmlStylist generates a Process Specification. The widgets used for visualization are based on BPMN.
Multiparty Collaborations are handled in this version.
Look and Feel support is added.
Splash screen is added.
Note the difference that, XmlStylist can handle any ebBP instance,but the graphical component pane (tabbed pane) can handle only ProcessSpecifications.

Some future enhancements and additions that are under consideration are:

The visualized ebBP elements should be enriched in type. CollaborationActivity, Complex Business Transaction Activity etc. may be included to the set of displayable elements.
The current version is tested with ebBP Technical Specification v2.0.3. Usage of another version of this document may cause unhandled exceptions.
The graphical component pane should be improved in a user-friendly manner and also, the level of coupling between this module and XmlStylist module may be decreased.
A communication bridge between ebXML Registries and the ebBP Editor can be constructed as a functionality of the ebBP Editor. Over this bridge, one can access ebBP instances in an ebXML Registry or upload a newly created instance to that registry.
The ebBP Editor should have the web accessibility capability.

Artemis Project promotes use of ebXML BPSS/ebBP for IHE/XDS Registry document flows

2006-06-28T18:08:00.000-04:00

Collaborative Business Process Support in IHE XDS through ebXML Business Processes is discussed in the recent white paper produced by Prof Asuman Dogac's team as part of the EU funded Artemis project for collaborative healthcare.

Abstract:

Currently, clinical information is stored in all kinds of proprietary formats through a multitude of medical information systems available on the market. This results in a severe interoperability problem in sharing electronic healthcare records.

To address this problem, an industry initiative, called “Integrating Healthcare Enterprise (IHE)” has specified the “Cross Enterprise Document Sharing (XDS)” Pro-file to store healthcare documents in an ebXML registry/repository to facilitate their sharing.

Through a separate effort, IHE has also defined interdepartmental Workflow Profiles to identify the transactions required to integrate information flow among several information systems. Although the clinical documents stored in XDS registries are obtained as a result of executing these workflows, IHE has not yet specified collaborative healthcare processes for the XDS. Hence, there is no way to track the workflows in XDS and the clinical documents produced through the workflows are manually inserted into the registry/repository.

Given that IHE XDS is using the ebXML architecture, the most natural way to integrate IHE Workflow Profiles to IHE XDS is using ebXML Business Processes (ebBP). In this paper, we describe the implementation of an enhanced IHE architecture demonstrating how ebXML Business Processes, IHE Workflow Profiles and the IHE XDS architecture can all be integrated to provide collaborative business process support in the healthcare domain.

ebXML success for European Federation of Energy Traders - ATEL AG, Switzerland, and Shell Trading, UK.

2006-06-14T13:13:00.000-04:00

ATEL AG, Switzerland, and Shell Trading, UK are now in production using the Hermes ebXML solution to securely exchange energy trading transactions using ebXML messaging.

Carsten Diederich, Head of Clearing at ATEL states: „After a long, demanding and finally successful testing period in which we matched all our trades from January 2005 until now, ATEL and Shell decided today to go live with Electronic Confirmation Matching. This is a very important step in the history of the EFET-eCM-Standard as this is the first going live between a "Ponton-Box" and an "enerbility-Box".

The going live of ATEL and Shell proves the concept of EFET's standardisation efforts aiming at a free and fair marketplace in the area of electronic messaging for energy trading (http://www.efet.org/).

For more information see the news release here http://www.enerbility.com/news/news12

ebXML 5 Year Celebrations!

2006-05-11T13:49:00.000-04:00

To commemorate the first five years since the publishing of the original ebXML specifications we are providing a focus page and resources. There you will find links to critical analysis of ebXML, technology summaries, assessments, original articles from 5 years ago, and more. Have your say on what is succeeding with ebXML and what has failed to make an impact.

OASIS Business-Centric Methodology (BCM) V1.0 approved

2006-05-03T11:18:00.000-04:00

When implementing eBusiness and ebXML projects managers need a sound methodology to be able to articulate the requirements and constraints for the work needed.

The OASIS BCM specification compliments the ebXML solution stack and provides just such business-centric tools for implementers.

"BCM gives business people the choice to think in business terms--not in 'techno-babble'," said Peter Fingar, industry expert on business process management and author of the newly released book, Extreme Competition.

"BCM helps managers precisely communicate their business goals among heterogeneous partners as well as layering the appropriate steps that must be applied for a project to succeed. By increasing communication between business partners and their developers, the standard lets enterprises achieve a greater degree of agility than would otherwise be possible."

More information and articles / news releases available from the Cover Pages BCM web resources page.

Europa IDABC Article on UBL, ebXML and Interoperability

2006-04-26T11:36:00.000-04:00

The Universal Business Language standard UBL 2.0 has already been widely adopted in the Nordic countries. Could it be the standard for all of Europe? UBL specialist Tim McGrath outlines the issues in an article for Synergy magazine.

New EA and BPM book - Clive Finkelstein explains how to exploit BPMN and ebXML BPSS

2006-04-19T12:18:00.000-04:00

Enterprise Architecture for Integration: Rapid Delivery Methods and Technologies by Clive Finkelstein in his latest book describes the methods and computer technologies that are needed to enable rapid business and system change.

“I cannot sufficiently impress you with the significance of Clive Finkelstein’s book… Clive’s methodology is one of the few methodologies that I know of in 2006 that actually addresses some of the enterprise engineering design objectives that go far beyond just getting the code to run.””----- From the foreword by John A. Zachman

Clive includes a chapter on using the ebXML Business Process Modeling Language (BPSS), Business Process Specification Schema (BPSS for ebXML) and Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) for automatic generation of executable XML-based BPEL/BPML or BPSS code from process models or workflow models defined using BPMN.

For more information see Artech House publishers book page.

New Resources and Introduction to ebXML Registry Technology

2006-04-11T09:27:00.000-04:00

Do you need help understanding what and how registry is and why it may be important to you?

Now there's a new wiki page providing an overview of the ebXML Registry standard development and the freebXML Registry open source implementation.

Find answers to questions and links to papers, presentations and tutorials.

This is a must have link for anyone wishing to learn about this technology.

Open Healthcare Framework (OHF) Project using IHE/XDS ebXML Registry

2006-04-05T11:55:00.000-04:00

The Open Healthcare Framework (OHF) Project is using the IHE/XDS secure document server developed by NIST using the ebXML Registry OMAR open source implementation - (http://www.freebxml.org).

At the recent IHE connectathon and HIMSS showcase the OHF team demonstrated a full XDS system, end to end. The XDS system includes XDS Registry, Repository, PIX server, ATNA, and all related clients - Document Consumer, Source, PIX/PDQ, CT. and ATNA.

The project includes collaboration between IBM, BEA, Mayo Clinic, Cisco Systems and other clinical participants.

For more information on the project see the website: http://www.eclipse.org/ohf/ and for latest news on the OHF work see: http://ohf-dev.blogspot.com/

Latest Webswell Connect - full open source ebXML implementation suite released

2006-03-30T16:13:00.000-05:00

Webswell Inc have announced the release of their latest version of Webswell Connect, the open-source ebXML integration platform. The latest Webswell Connect 1.4.1 contains:

E-business registry and repository
ebXML messaging system
Application connector called Webswell Broker
Demonstration and monitoring utilities
Components and libraries needed for the platform function- XML editor

Together with easy installation procedure Webswell Connect 1.4.1 constitutes a comprehensive ebXML integration platform that supports http, https and email communication while keeping it safe and reliable - implementing digital signatures, encryption, acknowledgments mechanism, duplication elimination etc.

Webswell Connect 1.4.1 is entirely open source software distributed under Academic Free License.

You can download at http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webswell/WebswellConnect1.4.1.jar?download

GM relies on BEA WebLogic and ebXML to re-tool parts ordering for 8,000 dealerships

2006-03-23T14:20:00.000-05:00

Since its nationwide launch of RIM in August 2005, about 1,000 GM dealers are active on the new system, and another 3,500 are enrolled and will soon be active.

According to Donna Colorito, process information officer at GM Service and Parts Operations, GM uses BEA Systems Inc.'s WebLogic Server to distribute parts information from its legacy systems and has adopted Electronic Business XML (ebXML) as its communications protocol.

By the end of 2007, GM expects to have its approximately 8,000 U.S. and Canadian dealers using its Retail Inventory Management (RIM) system, which relies on intelligence gleaned from nationwide parts sales to recommend parts-restocking policies at dealerships.

"A key aspect of the system is recommending what part to stock, and that’s not a trivial thing. GM has some 1.3 million parts that can be ordered, and dealerships typically have between 5,000 and 12,000 parts on the shelf at any given time, said Mike Nicholes, a parts management consultant and head of Nicholes Capital Management LLC in Portland, Ore".

For more details see the full article:

http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/story/0,10801,109799,00.html

Norwegian e-Health Infrastructure based on XML, ebXML and PKI

2006-03-20T14:43:00.000-05:00

Norway's National Insurance Administration (NIA) upgraded the EDI-based communications infrastructure it used to connect to its business partners with a new architecture based on open standards, including the ebXML Messaging OASIS Standard, ISO 15000-2.

NIA's ebXML Message service was built using the Xenos terminalONE end-to-end, transaction gateway solution.

To date, NIA's system is in production with four applications, and has transported several million ebXML messages corresponding to transactions totaling more than 10 billion Norwegian Kroner (equivalent to 1.2 billion EURO, or 1.5 billion USD).

At present the four applications using the new architecture are :

Medical certificate. Currently, 900 general practitioners at 350 offices (out of a total of 1850 offices) are using this application, covering access to 20% out of a total of 3.5 million medical records. The expectation is that this will double in 2006, as more and more suppliers of software to general practitioners add ebXML Messaging capabilities to their products, thus enabling their customers to connect to the e-Health infrastructure.
Requests for payment from general practitioners to the NIA. This is currently used by 500 doctors at 200 offices.
Requests for payment from pharmacies to the NIA. All pharmacies in Norway are using this application, and transactions totaling 10 billion Norwegian Kroner (equivalent to 1.2 billion EURO, or 1.5 billion USD) annually are transacted using this application.
The EHIC (European Health Insurance Card) is a European standard card format for European Union, European Economic Area or Swiss nationals traveling or staying temporarily in another EU/EEA country or Switzerland, indicating they are entitled to receive medical care should they become ill or have an accident. The order process between the NIA and the card producer uses ebXML Messaging. Currently, two million cards have been produced using this application.

The report states "The use of open standards has been a strategic choice that has worked well for the project. The National Insurance Administration would certainly recommend ebXML Messaging for other sectors looking for reliable messaging to handle sensitive information. As other projects of similar scope and nature are found, the real challenges in deploying and extending the Norwegian e-Health infrastructure are not technical, but related to the organizational complexity of connecting large numbers of partners that use a diversity of enterprise and legacy systems, but are required to converge on a common interface".

More details are available from the case study website and links to the whitepaper.

UK "Zanzibar" B2G eProcurement and UBL tieing the knot

2006-02-16T12:32:00.000-05:00

The UK government has launched the enhanced "Zanzibar" eProcurement system.

The underlying business transactions and formats in XML are being aligned with the UBL 2.0 work within OASIS that is developed using the ebXML CCTS approach.

This is an import milestone on the road toward international procurement system standards alignment.

The OGCbuying.solutions (http://www.ogcbuyingsolutions.gov.uk/) proposed standard includes 14 XML business documents which are being considered by OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) for incorporation in UBL 2.0 and as such is expected to become a new standard for eCommerce over the Internet.

More on the Zanzibar system is available from the press release - click here

ISO Focus Article - "ebXML - When Innovation Really Matters"

2006-02-12T23:08:00.000-05:00

The February edition of the ISO Focus magazine includes an article "ebXML - When Innovation Really Matters" by Alan Kotok. The article is wide ranging and discusses many aspects of the continuing evolving ebXML work. For information on the issue, see the ISO Focus web site on ordering print copies.

Exploiting ebXML registry semantic constructs for handling archetype metadata in healthcare informatics

2006-02-12T22:51:00.000-05:00

The medical community is working hard at leveraging knowledgement management (KM) to improve medical research and science.

Allied to this is the need to have better semantic understanding and alignment.

A recent paper published on semantic representations in registry shows how to work toward alignment of domain terms across a community of interest (CoI). The use of XML and OWL syntax to enable storage mechanisms inside the ebXML registry system is particularly insightful.

Centrica and enerbility successfully verifying eCM interoperability

2006-02-10T09:25:00.000-05:00

The adoption of ebXML within the electrical power distribution sector is moving forward.

Successful bilateral tests between enerbility software gmbh, Austria, and Centria PLC, UK were completed, with the goal to show the exchange and matching of XML based trade confirmations between different vendor implementations.

XML based electronic confirmations as a substitute for fax-based confirmations are the next step on the way to full electronic processes in the energy trading business. The necessary standards to accomplish this are developed in cooperative effort supported by the most important energy companies under the umbrella of the European Federation of Energy Traders (http://www.efet.org).

More information on this from the enerbility announcement.

New European Energy Trading using Hermes ebMS and ebXML

2006-01-12T12:20:00.000-05:00

The University of Hong Kong (HKU) and enerbility software gmbh of Vienna, Austria, have announced today that the open source ebXML message service handler, Hermes, has been integrated in the electronic confirmation matching system - "enerbility 2.0".

The enerbility 2.0 is the second generation of an ECM-system developed for the over-the-counter trading in the European energy industry. It is in use at major energy trading companies in Europe like E.ON, ATEL, Statkraft and APT.

To comply with the industry demand for ebXML, enerbility went for Hermes after extended testing of available tools. "Today’s Hermes is also the result of contribution by developers in the open-source community around the world. I’m very pleased to see Hermes being chosen as the messaging gateway to facilitate the energy sector,” says Dr. David Cheung, Director of CECID.

About enerbility software gmbh (www.enerbility.com) enerbility software gmbh is a dynamic flexible Vienna-based company which emerged from a pilot project for the development of an Electronic Confirmation Matching Systems (ECM) based on the EFET (European Federation of Energy Traders) Standard. enerbility software gmbh was founded in Spring 2004 and is focused on software development and consultancy for the energy sector.

More information and download links for Hermes ebMS can be found from the Hermes project site (http://www.freebxml.org).

ebXML Registry Wiki collaboration site for IHE XDS and UNSPSC Projects

2006-01-12T12:13:00.000-05:00

The OASIS Registry team Wiki site now has the following pages to facilitate the collaboration and resource sharing with the IHE XDS and UNSPSC project initiatives:

collaborations/ihe-xds - Collaboration with IHE XDS to define an "ebXML registry Profile for IHE-XDS"
collaborations/unspsc - Collaboration with UNSPSC to define an "ebXML registry Profile for UNSPSC"

The goal is to develop profiles for using ebXML Registry for these two applications. IHE XDS is a secure document exchange environment focused on healthcare applications. UNSPSC is a dictionary initiative for global eBusiness supported by UN/CEFACT that is focused on 200+ member country needs for semantic interoperability.