Conmergence

Drummond Certified(TM) Program Announces Six Software Products Certified for Global ebXML Interoperability

Drummond Group Inc. (DGI), the leading B2B interoperability certification company, today announced that six software products from six companies successfully completed the Drummond Certified program’s ebMS (ebXML Message Service)-4Q07 interoperability testing.

Companies demonstrating interoperability among their products in the ebMS-4Q07 test round included Axway, Cleo Communications, Generix Group, IBM, Inovis, and TIBCO Software Inc.

ebMS is the messaging layer of the ebXML framework. This test included a new optional test that validated using the DSA with SHA-1 algorithm for digitally signing ebMS messages over both HTTP and HTTPS. In previous testing rounds only the RSA with SHA1 algorithm had been tested. ebMS continues to grow in global adoption and current industries include automotive, financial services, government and healthcare.

For specific ebMS-4Q07 test results on the software that was Drummond Certified and the final report that lists test details and features, please visit: http://www.drummondgroup.com/html-v2/ebXML-companies.html.

About Drummond Group Inc.

Drummond Group Inc. (DGI), a global leader in B2B software testing and certification, works with software vendors, industry associations, supply chains and the standards community by conducting interoperability and conformance testing on open standards, publishing related strategic research and developing vertical industry strategies. Founded in 1999, DGI has tested hundreds of international software products used in vertical industries such as automotive, consumer product goods, financial services, government, petroleum, pharmaceutical and retail. For more information, please visit www.drummondgroup.com or email: info@drummondgroup.com.

ebXML: Bringing SOA to small enterprises

1st November 2007, By CBR Staff Writer

At the recent Butler Group and OASIS conference on SOA standards and their impact on the public sector, one speaker described the Japanese government's initiative to use SOA to boost the number of small- and medium-sized enterprises that conduct direct B2B e-commerce. This initiative may prove an example of good foresight, and could help give Japanese small businesses an edge over foreign rivals.

...As part of the initiative, work has been done on extending ebXML to support 'pull' messaging. In this variation, messages for a recipient will be stored until the receiving organization issues requests to retrieve them. In this way, small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that cannot justify the cost of running a full high-availability, 24/7 IT operation can create a far simpler IT infrastructure. Messages can be downloaded asynchronously at a time to suit the recipient. This extension to ebXML has now been approved by OASIS and formalized as ebXML 3.0 in October 2007.

Members Approve ebXML Messaging Services 3.0 as OASIS Standard

Axway Software, Fujitsu, NEC, Sun Microsystems, U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and Others Collaborate on New Version of Global Standard for Exchanging Business Messages over the Internet

Boston, MA, USA; 16 October 2007 – OASIS, the international open standards consortium, today announced that its members have approved ebXML Messaging Services (ebMS) version

3.0: Part 1, Core Features as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. ebMS 3.0 defines a Web services-based method for the reliable, secure exchange of business information. It is the latest addition to the ebXML family of specifications that was launched as a global initiative by OASIS and the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) and has been adopted worldwide.

“This specification is the first major revision of ebMS since version 2.0 was approved as an OASIS Standard in April 2002 – and subsequently as an ISO Standard in March 2004,” said Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. “It ensures ebXML's continuing relevancy and achieves compatibility with Web services specifications developed after ebMS 2.0, including SOAP 1.2 , as well as the WS-Security, WS-Reliability, and WS-ReliableMessaging OASIS Standards.”

“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. “We've succeeded in extending the existing enveloping technique that permits messages to contain payloads of any format type - not just XML, to a more flexible Web service framework. This versatility ensures legacy electronic business systems that use traditional syntaxes, such as EDI, ASC X12, or HL7, can leverage the advantages of the ebMS infrastructure along with systems based on emerging technologies.”

ebMS is designed to be used either with or without any of the other ebXML standards, including ebXML Business Process Specification Schema (BPSS) 2.0.4 and a forthcoming version of ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement (CPP/A). By design, ebMS 3.0 also fully supports composition with other SOAP-based Web services specifications.

ebMS was developed under the Royalty-Free on Limited Terms Mode of the OASIS Intellectual Property Rights Policy. Axway, Fujitsu Computer Systems, and NEC all verified successful use of ebMS 3.0, in accordance with eligibility requirements for all OASIS Standards.

The OASIS ebMS Technical Committee continues work on Part 2 of ebMS 3.0 that will provide functional extensions to the ebMS 3.0 Core. Participation in the Technical Committee remains open to all companies, non-profit groups, governments, academic institutions, and individuals. Archives of the work are accessible to both members and non-members, and OASIS offers a mechanism for public comment. OASIS hosts an XML.org Focus Area for ebXML, http://ebxml.xml.org, which serves as the official community gathering place and information resource for the standards.

Support for ebMS

Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG)
“AIAG supports ebMS 3.0 because it enables trading partners to pull for incoming messages, which is very beneficial for smaller companies that do not have static Internet IP addresses or do not want to keep their systems turned on all the time. The automotive industry has invested in ebXML and in Web services capabilities; ebMS 3.0 should facilitate interoperable data exchange using both transport mechanisms,” said Pat Snack, General Motors Executive Loan, AIAG.

Axway
“Many global communities use ebXML to reliably transport electronic business messages over the Internet. The ebXML version 3.0 standards process has mainly focused on improving the messaging standard by adding new features found in recent WS-* standards and allowing smaller customers to engage in ebXML business-quality messaging without needing a 24-by-7 Web server. We feel these enhancements will increase its adoption and are pleased to have participated in the endeavor,” said Dave Bennett, CTO at Axway.

Fujitsu
“This new version of ebMS will address a broader array of users including SMEs with limited connectivity and little IT management resources. The adoption of Web services standards for security and reliability will facilitate implementations over existing platforms. We believe ebMS 3.0 will become an effective and versatile B2B complement to enterprise systems and SOA deployments,” said Yasushi Ishida, Exective Architect of Software Unit, Fujitsu Limited.

Health Level Seven (HL7)
“We have completed committee level balloting on a new release of the HL7 ebXML Transport Specification (normative track) which is based on ebMS 3.0 and expect to proceed to membership ballot in Jan 2008. ebMS 3.0 provides an excellent platform for all forms of health information content exchange including documents, SOA, and messages with the diversity of stakeholders in the health care community,” said Paul Knapp of Continovation Services Inc., HL7 Implementable Technology Specifications SIG Co-Chair.

Additional information:

OASIS ebMS Technical Committee

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ebxml-msg

ebXML XML.org

http://ebxml.xml.org

About OASIS:

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), drives the development, convergence, and adoption of open standards for the global information society. A not-for-profit consortium, OASIS advances standards for SOA, security, Web services, documents, e-commerce, government and law, localisation, supply chains, XML processing, and other areas of need identified by its members. OASIS open standards offer the potential to lower cost, stimulate innovation, grow global markets, and protect the right of free choice of technology. The consortium has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. http://www.oasis-open.org

Press contact:

Carol Geyer
OASIS Director of Communications
carol.geyer@oasis-open.org
+1.978.667.5115 x209 (office)
+1.941.284.0403 (mobile)

UK Pharmacists Prescribe ebXML, LDAP, SOAP

NHS Connecting for Health Electronic Prescription Service (EPS) and Cegedim Rx Ltd Spinal Tap Quicksilva Software Solutions.

Philippines, Thailand ebXML, Web Service Pilot project tests Single Window for faster trade

Thailand has kicked off collaboration with the Philippines to launch a data-exchange pilot project under the Asean Single Window (ASW) initiative. The Customs departments of Thailand and the Philippines have tested the exchange of CEPT Form D and export declaration information through the national single windows of the two countries.

The Common Effective Preferential Tariff Scheme (CEPT) is a cooperative arrangement among Asean countries that aims to reduce intra-regional tariffs and remove non-tariff barriers.

OASIS ebXML Business Process (ebBP) v2.0.4 Standard Overview and Demonstration, Tuesday, June 5, 2007, 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM EDT

Monica Martin writes:

The OASIS ebBP Webinar went off successsfully 5 June 2007 [1]. If you were unable to attend or wish to listen to the MP3 replay, visit the OASIS webinar page:

http://www.oasis-open.org/events/webinars/2007-06-05-ebXML-Business-Process.wmv

I've also uploaded screen shots from the Source Forge freebxmlbp editor tool and posted at:

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/24305/ebxmlbp-freebxmlbp-screen-shots-support-shared-libraries-june2007.zip

The brief also includes references to the health care profile using ebBP to be briefed to IEEE:

http://www.srdc.metu.edu.tr/webpage/publications/2007/DogacKabakNamliOkcan.pdf

ebBP co-chair Dale Moberg is off to Europe to continue to work on synergy between ebBP and the emerging OMG Business Process Definition Metamodel work.

We continue to work with the financial services, eGovernment and even public testing domains with community interest in ebBP.

* Financial services starting example .zip (DRAFT):

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/24294/ebxmlbp-twist-updated-shared-library-moberg-june2007.zip

* Starting map with BPDM-ebBP:

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/24295/ebxmlbp-draft-PARTIAL-component-to-bpdm-map-moberg-june2007.doc

* To be used with BPDM work on model-driven.org (interaction protocols):

http://portal.modeldriven.org/bpdmhtml/index.htm

We're also engaging with eGovernment entities in Denmark and more broadly in Europe (eInvoicing). We will keep you posted on our progress and encourage you to visit our public web site at:

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

Best regards and thanks to all those who attended the webinar (47). Thanks.

========

[1] Title: OASIS ebXML Business Process (ebBP) v2.0.4 Standard: Overview, role in eBusiness, and community interest and adoption. Discover the advantages of the ebXML Business Process Specification Schema (ebBP) v2.0.4 Standard from the OASIS Technical Committee and interested community parties. ebBP is a standard business process definition for business systems configured to support the execution of business collaborations between partners or collaborating parties. The ebBP TC invites you to attend an open webinar to learn more about ebBP and the importance of eBusiness collaboration using this standard business process definition in key marketplaces such as health care, financial services and eGovernment. Listen to experts and stakeholders talk about the value of and the benefit from ebBP.

OASIS ebXML Registry and Repository: the System of Record for SOA Deployments

Demonstartion.
Recorded on Monday, Jun 4, 2007
Duration: 100 min

OASIS ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement (CPPA) Technical Committee v3.0 Standard Overview Thursday, 7 June 2007

Discover the advantages of the OASIS ebXML CPPA v2.0 and v3.0 from the people who are developing them. ebXML CPPA v 2.0 is already in use in several production communities that are using ebXML Message Service and ebXML Business Process, and will provide support for legacy protocols such as EDIINT, RosettaNet, and emerging SOAP based protocols ("web services"). Demonstration.

Speakers: Pim van der Eijk - OASIS European Representative
Dale Moberg - Axway Inc.
Sacha Schlegel

Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www.gotomeeting.com/register/606807672

ebXML (Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language), is a modular suite of specifications that enables enterprises of any size and in any geographical location to conduct business over the Internet. The week of ebXML webinars devoted to the ebXML standards...Monday through Thursday, 4-7 June, at 3:00PM GMT, a different ebXML standard will be featured...attend one or all...learn about the current state of the standards from the people who created them and who continue to advance this foundational work.

"Week of OASIS ebXML Webinars" timeframe:
3:00PM GMT, 12:00AM Tokyo, 8:00AM San Francisco, 11:00AM Boston, 4:00PM London.

OASIS ebXML Messaging Services (ebMS) TC v3.0 Standard Overview - Wednesday, 6 June 2007

The OASIS ebXML Message Service is one of the most widely used parts of the ebXML framework. The new 3.0 version leverages a number of key Web Services technologies, such as Web Service Security and Web Services Reliable Messaging, and provides innovative new features to support small and medium size organizations. Demonstration.

Wednesday, 6 June 2007
Speakers: Pim van der Eijk - OASIS European Representative
Jacques Durand - Fujitsu
Pete Wenzel - Sun Microsystems

Space is limited. Reserve your Webinar seat now at: https://www.gotomeeting.com/register/901808534

ebXML (Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language), is a modular suite of specifications that enables enterprises of any size and in any geographical location to conduct business over the Internet. The week of ebXML webinars devoted to the ebXML standards...Monday through Thursday, 4-7 June, at 3:00PM GMT, a different ebXML standard will be featured...attend one or all...learn about the current state of the standards from the people who created them and who continue to advance this foundational work.

"Week of OASIS ebXML Webinars" timeframe:
3:00PM GMT, 12:00AM Tokyo, 8:00AM San Francisco, 11:00AM Boston, 4:00PM London.

ebXML Case Study: Automated Document Transfer between the DBKK Health Insurance Company and their Business Partners

ebXML Forum News | http://www.ebxmlforum.net note that the presentation and details of the system that the German Health Insurance company Deutsche Betriebskrankenkasse (DBKK) has implemented are available.

Hermes 2 Open Source New Release

Hong Kong SAR, Peoples Republic of China - 11 May 2007 - Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID), The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is pleased to announce a new open source version of Hermes Messaging Gateway v2.0 (H2O) will be released 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 will provide additional tools and a full set of documentation to make configuration, and administration even more easily. The new release will include an installation wizard, web-based GUI admin tool, message status query capabilities, and documentation of an installation guide, configuration guide, admin tool user guide as well as the plug-in development guide.

H2O and its source code will be released under GNU General Public License Version 2. Users and developers can get community support through the mailing list cecid-hermes2@googlegroups.com.

Completed the AS2 Interoperability Testing AS-1Q05 with 29 other participants (http://ebusinessready.org/as2.html) organized by U.S. leading testing company, Drummond Group Inc., Hermes 2 enables real-time communication through HTTP or HTTPS to transmit data over the Internet. Besides, it provides security for the transport payload through Secure Multi-Purpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME), digital signatures and encryption, while reliability and non-repudiation are achieved through the use of receipts.

The AS2 standard, commonly used in supply chains by large retailers, manufacturers and suppliers, is often regarded as the “EDI over Internet” standard. Hermes 2 facilitates large as well as small enterprises to exchange EDI or other business-to-business data with their partners and customers. It operates as a Java web application. The ebXML Messaging Service (ebMS) and AS2 messaging capabilities are facilitated by the corresponding plugins, which can be easily developed by users through Hermes’ Simple Plugin Architecture specification. The messaging operation requires a database with JDBC connectivity to keep track of the messaging status.

About CECID (www.cecid.hku.hk)
Established in January 2002, Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID) at the University of Hong Kong conducts e-commerce research and development with the vision of helping organizations increase their competitiveness in the global economy. CECID develops e-commerce enabling technologies, participates in important international e-commerce initiatives, as well as supports e-commerce standardization for Hong Kong and the Asia Pacific Region. With projects primarily funded by the Hong Kong Government's Innovation and Technology Commission, CECID also takes on the mission to transfer knowledge and technology to the community. Besides organizing forums and seminars, the Center licenses its R&D results through the University of Hong Kong to IT industry. Its acclaimed e-commerce technology, Hermes, has penetrated over 80 economies and won the Best Infrastructure and Communication Application of the Linux Business Award 2005 as well as Certificates of Merit of the Asia-Pacific ICT Awards 2004 and HK Computer Society IT Excellence Award 2004.

PR Contacts for Press and Analysts
Dorris Tai (cwtai@cecid.hku.hk)
Business Manager
Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID)
Dept. of Computer Science
The University of Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2859 2818
Fax: +852 2547 4611
URL: http://www.cecid.hku.hk

ebXML Webinar Week, June 4-7, 2007

ebXML (Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language), is a modular suite of specifications that enables enterprises of any size and in any geographical location to conduct business over the Internet. The week of ebXML webinars devoted to the ebXML standards...Monday through Thursday, 4-7 June, at 3:00PM GMT, a different ebXML standard will be featured...attend one or all...learn about the current state of the standards from the people who created them and who continue to advance this foundational work.

Can Medical Banking Connect the Healthcare IT Dots for Politicians?

<ed.note>John Casillas testified today before the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) American Health Information Community concerning the medical banking vision of a unified view and unified platform to connect EHR|PHR, real-time adjudication, Healthcare Savings Accounts, High Deductible Health Plans, Consumer Driven Healthcare. AHIC decided at its November 29, 2005 meeting to form workgroups in the following areas: biosurveillance, consumer empowerment, chronic care, and electronic health records. Subsequently, at the May 16, 2006 Community meeting, two additional groups were formed: the Biosurveillance Data Steering Group as a sub-workgroup within the Biosurveillance Workgroup (renamed Population Health and Clinical Care Connections Workgroup), and the Confidentiality, Privacy & Security Workgroup, which was created as a cross-cutting workgroup responsible for an issue relevant to all the workgroups. More recent, at the August 1, 2006, meeting, the Community formed the Quality Workgroup to address the need for the development of quality measures; and at the October 31, 2006, meeting, the Personalized Healthcare Workgroup was formed to develop and make recommendations on standards for interoperable integration of genomic test information into personal e-health records.</ed.note>

Outsourcing the C-Suite [ Tweaked and reposted -- was: Ralph Szygenda believes that the high-tech industry can learn from the auto industry ]

<ed.note>The services and support industry no longer requires an overpaid, iddatarate management strata -- since it can easily be replaced by a webbed database, wiki or now, finally, outsourced. Shareholders, especially with the rise of "activists" coupled with the blogosphere, will get wise “that globalization hasn't gone far enough.” This is because there is no sphere in business to which Szygenda's "standards" do not apply and those standards lead to automation and outsourcing and real-time accountability ( interoperancy ) on a cost per unit basis. Adoption of service oriented architecture, the rise of financial services straight thru processing, and the push for transparent open book management is set to ignite a very interesting class war. Though the new money provided by increased productivity ( read: IT employees, whose data aggregation and process re-engineering produced the value ) produced has gone straight to "C" bonuses, rather than employees or stockholders, "C's" still feel a need to pull stuff like this and this.</ed.note>

ebXML: Everything Old Is New Again

<ed.note>If you check out posts on the newish ebxml.xml.org you'll note both IBM and Microsoft are interacting with ebXML... again.</ed.note>

Webswell Connect 2.0.6 is out

Webswell Connect provides open source technological infrastructure that enables companies to take part in documents interchange based on the ebXML, WS web services and AS2 standards. 
It contains: 
- EbXML, WS web services and AS2-compliant messaging system
- A Registry and Repository for business objects
- Demonstration, simulation and testing utilities
- Multiplatform java installer 

Changes in latest version:
- Added support of Windows services for Tomcat
- Dispatcher 1.1.1 , improved error handling
- Major bug fix in installer for Windows systems

More information at:
http://www.webswell.com

Download at:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=167017

Revisiting the ebXML Media Boycott - Alan Kotok's "Adoption of ebXML: Hiding in Plain Sight"

From ebxmlforum

Have you ever misplaced your glasses or keys, only to discover they were right in front of you all the time? This same phenomenon seems to be happening with some so-called experts, observers, and analysts who recently report low levels of ebXML adoption, particularly when compared to generic Web services. Read more

Wellfleet Software's Farrukh Najmi responds to Burton Group's Anne Thomas Manes

<ed.note>In "UDDI set to emerge from the shadows of obscurity" Joe McKendrick comments on Burton Group's Anne Thomas Manes' "Why SOA needs UDDI now." If I knew that Manes' level of accuracy was all that was required I would have put out my "Analyst" shingle long ago. Fortunately, Wellfleet Software's Furrukh Najmi provides Joe the data which was lacking from Manes' article.</ed.note>

The Enterprise Committer: When Your Employee Develops Open-Source Code on the Company Payroll

January 31, 2007 By Esther Schindler, CIO.com

One of your developers wants to extend an open-source application to solve a company problem, then contribute the code back to the community. That's fine. But making that process work in enterprise terms involves more than getting the legal department to recover from its fainting fit.

One of your best developers comes to you with a unique proposal. Instead of writing software from scratch, or begging for the budget to purchase an off-the-shelf solution that would need customization anyway—well, there's an open-source application called Foobar that does nearly everything on the wish list. The developer suggests that she could extend Foobar's feature set, and then contribute the enhancements back to the open-source community. This way, when the next Foobar version is released, it won't need the custom changes made all over again. And the only cost is her salary.

Sally St. Amand's OMG Think Tank Presentation - Business Collaboration Using ebBP

here.

freebXML Software Foundation Announces 'freeb-ubl' [ Update ]

Stephen Green:

On behalf of the 'freeb-ubl' project I am pleased to announce the availability of our project's first release, version 1.0.

The 'freeb-ubl' project is a new royalty-free, open source project from the freebXML Software Foundation.

'freeb-ubl' is published as an opensource implementers' package for UBL and ebXML. It provides royalty-free, out-of-the-box tools to aid with use of the Universal Business Language (UBL) and the standard framework for electronic business with XML, ebXML. The package is intended to grow over time but this version provides:

• stylesheets for transforming UBL 1.0 Small Business Subset (SBS) compliant instances (electronic invoices, orders and the like) to their UBL 2.0 equivalents
• CAM templates samples for contextual content validation and subset business rules (for illustration)
• XForms for simple input, editing and viewing with an XForms reader of various UBL and ebXML-BP documents (Note: this version focuses on the UBL procurement documents)
• generator (XSLT) to allow self-build creation of XForms additional to those ready-made (can be combined with jCAM engine)
• UBL 1.0 and UBL 2.0 customizations (subsets) for general use with schema files provided (procurement documents) and matching CAM templates
• atomic, modular ebXML Business Process (ebXML-BP 2.0) definitions for these documents

Robin Cover's Cover Pages treatment.

"Most Obviously Sycophantic Research 2006" Award [ was Web Services Specifications: What About ebXML? ]

<ed.note>"very little vendor or user support for ebXML" -- I wonder how IBM, Oracle, and Sun would feel about this assessment, not to mention the vendors who support freebxml? ebxmlforum.net and ebxml.org document the millions of users. [ Update: David Webber gives his free ( AS IN BEER ) research analysis HERE and presents the AWARD. ]</ed.note>

January 5, 2007 by Randy Heffner with Gene Leganza, Jacqueline Stone, Forrester

Web services adoption continues, but it is taking a long time to work out all of the specifications and standards. Along the way, the industry has created confusion around and between ebXML specifications and the emerging Web services specifications. ebXML is targeted strictly at B2B interactions, and even though ebXML is incorporating some of the Web services specifications, a clear relationship between the two has yet to emerge. According to data from recent Forrester surveys, there is very little vendor or user support for ebXML. This, combined with the continuing confusion, means that most users should avoid ebXML for now — unless they have a targeted reason for using it and good support from their vendors.

Members Approve Universal Business Language (UBL) 2.0 as OASIS Standard

OASIS, the international standards consortium, today announced that its members have approved the Universal Business Language (UBL) version 2.0 as an OASIS Standard, a status that signifies the highest level of ratification. UBL defines a royalty-free library of standard, electronic XML business documents such as purchase orders and invoices. UBL formats in electronic messages enable direct connection into existing business, legal, auditing, and records management practices, eliminating the re-keying of data in existing fax- and paper-based supply chains and providing an entry point into electronic commerce for small- and medium-sized businesses.

UBL 2.0 features a library of more than one thousand XML data elements based on the ebXML Core Components Technical Specification (ISO 15000-5). Building on the eight core order-to-invoice document types in UBL 1.0, version 2.0 adds 23 new document types to accommodate extended procurement scenarios and basic transport processes. Development of these new schemas was funded directly or indirectly by the governments of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, England, Finland, Iceland, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United States.

“Denmark has participated actively in the making of UBL 2.0 and has found the work to be very instructive and the co-operation very fruitful. We can only recommend other countries to join the work of developing open international standards, based on user needs,” said Marie Munk, Deputy Director General in the Danish National IT and Telecome Agency. “In Denmark we see UBL 2.0 as a backbone for the future of eProcurement, and we have already seen the first real ERP-implementation of the Danish customization of UBL 2.0.”

In addition to greatly expanding the range of business processes supported by UBL, version 2.0 also taps the power of W3C XSLT, W3C XPath, and ISO Schematron to provide a breakthrough in code list management. “Employing the new 'genericode' XML specification for code list publication currently under development in OASIS, our approach allows trading partners to easily and precisely specify code list subsets and extensions and even to apply them to particular elements and subtrees within UBL instances -- all without changing the standard UBL schemas,” explained Tim McGrath, vice chair of the OASIS UBL Technical Committee. “Once in place, this standards-based process enables the implementation of business rule checking as part of instance validation. Open source software included in the UBL 2.0 release provides this new functionality 'out of the box.'”

"With the addition of new sourcing, fulfillment, and billing documents in UBL 2.0, global ecommerce now has what it needs to support the creation of inexpensive, off-the-shelf software for business-to-business transactions over the internet," said Jon Bosak of Sun Microsystems, chair of the OASIS UBL Technical Committee. "The UBL implementations underway in Northern Europe are already demonstrating the economic power of a concept that will reshape the way we do business."

“The UBL OASIS Standard can extend the benefits of electronic business to companies of all sizes,” noted Patrick Gannon, president and CEO of OASIS. “Building on other Internet-based messaging structures such as ebXML and Web services, UBL opens the door for companies, in both developed and developing economies, to engage in regional, national, and international trade.” Gannon, who serves as an advisor to the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development, observed that UBL can play a strategic role in the UN's economic development programs. “As a royalty-free, open standard, UBL offers a significant advantage for governments seeking longer term sustainability of applications and portability of data.”

UBL 2.0 was developed by the OASIS UBL Technical Committee, which counted among its members representatives from Boeing, Booz Allen Hamilton, Capgemini, Intel, JustSystems, NEC, US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), PTC, Sterling Commerce, Sun Microsystems, as well as government agencies such as the Denmark Ministry of Science, Technology & Innovation, Korea Institute for Electronic Commerce, New Zealand State Services Commission, Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions, US Dept of the Navy, and others. Participation in the OASIS UBL Technical Committee remains open to all, and OASIS hosts the public ubl-dev mailing list for exchanging information on implementing the standard.

Support for UBL 2.0

JustSystems

“With version 2.0, UBL becomes the foundation for building systems that are compliant with a global standard for business documents. JustSystems' native XML application platform, xfy, already supports the entire set of 31 UBL 2.0 document types, and we believe that this support will help industry adapt to UBL 2.0 and resolve real-world issues of doing business," said Hideki Hiura, CTO of JustSystems.

Sun Microsystems

"Ten years ago, Sun Microsystems organized and led the effort to create XML. Sun's sponsorship of the UBL standard for XML business documents continues its tradition of open standards leadership with a technology that promises huge savings for governments and businesses alike. The royalty-free UBL standard will lower the barrier to entry for small businesses, increase competition among software vendors, and foster innovation in electronic commerce,” observed Crawford Beveridge, Sun's Executive Vice President of Global Government Strategy.

Additional information:

OASIS UBL Technical Committee:

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ubl/

UBL FAQ:

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ubl/faq.php

Cover Pages Technology Report:

http://xml.coverpages.org/ubl.html

OASIS Code List Representation Technical Committee:

http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/codelist/

About OASIS:

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international consortium that drives the development, convergence, and adoption of e-business standards. Members themselves set the OASIS technical agenda, using a lightweight, open process expressly designed to promote industry consensus and unite disparate efforts. The consortium produces open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, BCM, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, EDXL-DE, EML, OpenDocument, SAML, SOA-RM, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Notification, WS-Reliability, WSRF, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, XCBF, and XML Catalogs. http://www.oasis-open.org.

UK National Health Service (NHS) National Programme for Information Technology uses ebXML Messaging (update)

I’m pleased to announce that a new case study was posted at the ebXML.org Web site:

http://www.ebxml.org/case_studies/NHS-ebMSG-casestudy-041206.pdf

The UK's National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT) is the world's largest civil IT project. A central component of the NHS Care Records Service is the Transactional Messaging Service (TMS) Spine using the ebXML Messaging Service OASIS Standard.

The Transaction and Messaging Service provides the communications infrastructure for the National Programme. It serves to interconnect regional network clusters managed by Local Service Providers (LSPs) and national services such as systems for electronic booking and transmission of prescriptions. The technology framework used for TMS is based on a large number of advanced technical specifications and standards. This includes the ebXML Messaging Service OASIS Standard. Within the TMS Spine, ebXML is used to provide reliable messaging functionality. National services such as the Electronic Booking Service (Choose and Book) and Electronic Transmission of Prescriptions are accessed using pairs of XML request and response documents. These documents are transported within the NHS network as ebXML messages.

With an anticipated yearly volume of over 5.000.000.000 message by 2010, TMS is likely to be among the largest messaging systems in production in the world. For this very reason, TMS is also likely to be among the larger systems worldwide that will use the ebXML Messaging OASIS Standard. 

Sincere congratulations to everyone involved in this very significant project!

Pim van der Eijk

# # # #

David Webber adds at ebxml forum news:

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

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.

Registry the Right Way

"SOA for the real world" by Ash Parikh and Murty Gurajada, JavaWorld.com, 11/29/06

The focus of most SOA implementations today is on the service layer and often extends to the registry to publish and discover services. This approach to SOA is easy to comprehend. As mentioned previously, the concept of exposing services is not a new one. Most software architects and engineers have years of experience building services and should be comfortable applying their knowledge to expose services using the newer Web and XML technologies. Once the services are implemented, registry products based on UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration) are used to publish and discover them.

With this architecture in place, enterprises already have much better visibility than was ever possible before WSDL (Web Services Description Language) and UDDI standards emerged on the scene. Unfortunately, it is because of this pleasing ROI that most implementations stop short in their tracks—that is, until it becomes apparent when trying to scale their model that a service layer with a registry is simply not enough for true SOA ROI.

ebXML Messaging for Health Insurance

2006 InfoWorld 100 Awards: Health Care

Trygdeetaten www.nav.no
ebXML Messaging for Health Insurance
Project Lead: Oyvind Gjorven, Senior Advisor
Project Description: The National Insurance Scheme is the cornerstone of the Norwegian welfare system. Two years ago, the Directorate of Labour and Welfare (formerly the National Insurance Administration) initiated a project to replace the EDI-based communications infrastructure it used to connect to its business partners. One of the core open standards in the new architecture is the ebXML Messaging OASIS Standard, ISO 15000-2. This International Standard provides secure and reliable messaging of arbitrary payloads (EDIFACT and XML) and supports advanced functionality in areas such as routing, monitoring, message identification, and correlation. The ebXML message service provided by the NIA was built using Xenos terminalONE, an end-to-end, standards-based transaction gateway solution that expedites business transactions over the Internet and across disparate platforms.

Oracle AS Integration B2B tutorial for ebXML / ebMS now online

David Webber, ebXML Forum News

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.

ebBP News - ebBP in OASIS Standard Vote!

Everyone, The ebBP v2.0.4 vote for OASIS Standard vote began 16 November (vote: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ballot.php?id=1150) and continues to 30 November 2006. The response thus far has been favorable. In support of business collaboration, ebBP is a valuable addition to the OASIS Standard specification set and to the marketplace. We encourage those that work with OASIS or have voting organizational members to cast their affirmative ballot by 30 November 2006 and to enable the next step to promote to ISO-15000 standard. For those of you that have voted or encouraged your community to do so, we appreciate the support. For others, we trust you will pass along this information on our behalf.

The ebBP (ebXML Business Process Specification Schema) is a business collaboration process standard useful for monitoring rather than an executable language. The ebBP enables the collaborative or eBusiness processes relevant to trading partners across enterprises or collaborating parties.  It could also map to WS-BPEL that engage processes within an enterprise.As a business collaboration definition targeted specifically for and developed by business communities, ebBP is well-positioned for eBusiness. For example, our TC has worked with user communities in Italy, the Netherlands, Asia, and the United Kingdom on sample or actual real-world process definitions. We've also worked with Universal Business Language (UBL) to create modular process definitions that support that OASIS standard and ebBP.

The permanent locations for the v2.04 packages are found at: http://docs.oasis-open.org/ebxml-bp/2.0.4/. The public web site is located at: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=ebxml-bp.

ebBP is also in the news:
1. METU has provided an updated ebBP Editor Tool. See: http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=154705. Their cumulative efforts are important to eHealth and to the domain of businessprocess in general. Congratulations to METU!
2. We've now posted sample Japanese process definitions from JEITA. See: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/download.php/20133/ecom-jeita-ebbp-samples-definitions-aug2006.zip.
3. ebBP and the framework ebXML technologies were recently featured at Linux World. Stay tuned for more information.
4. More is to come too from Object Management Group as ebBP has contributed to their work on Business Process Definition Metamodel (BPDM) and Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN). The experience around and requirements for choreography and business collaboration from ebBP experts has positively received by those groups. As their work evolves, so will the functionality to support our primary areas of interest.

All referenced information and more is available on our public web site that includes:

Frequently Asked Questions

ebBP Overview

Multiple sample process definitions for including those from UBL SBS, Italian knit wear, CPP/A negotiation, JEITA and more.

Business signal examples

Links to the current ebBP editor

The ebBP TC would greatly appreciate your support and vote for advancing ebBP to OASIS Standard.

Regards.
Dale Moberg, US Axway
Monica J. Martin, Sun Microsystems
[for the OASIS ebXML Business Process TC (ebBP)]

A National Summit: Moving Toward Interoperability - Technologies for Accessible, Affordable Healthcare October 18-19, 2006 [ Updated ]

Presentations available online here.

NIST Administration Building, Gaithersburg, MD

Keynote Address:

Michael O. Leavitt (confirmed)
Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Carlos M. Gutierrez (invited)
Secretary, U.S. Department of Commerce

Craig R. Barrett (confirmed)
Chairman of the Board, Intel Corporation

Just Announced...

Keynote Address (Day Two):
Mike Magee, MD, Director, Pfizer Medical Humanities Initiative and Vice President, Science and Medical Advocacy, Pfizer Inc. (confirmed)

This is a unique opportunity where government and industry will come together to chart a path toward a far-reaching vision for connected, home-based health technologies through public-private partnerships.

Five session topics will cover today's interoperability issues, such as:

• Market Drivers and Societal Issues
• Technology Gaps and Barriers Networked, Interoperable Solutions
• Device Standardization and Interoperability of Equipment
• EHR and PHR Standards as a Foundation for Future Digital Healthcare Systems

Register Today!
Register online now. The registration fee is $195 and includes meals, summit materials, and transportation to and from the NIST facilities to the Gaithersburg Holiday Inn.

Hotel and Travel
Reserve a hotel room at the Gaithersburg Holiday Inn. A limited number of rooms are available for the rate of $104 per night. Book online or call (301) 948-8900 to make your reservation . Please refer to the "NIST/Moving Toward Interoperability Workshop" room block. The group booking code is MTI.

Posters and Case Studies
Interact with researchers at universities, companies and government on technologies to support our aging population during our poster networking session.

Questions?
Contact Rebecca Scritchfield
E-mail: rscritchfield@agingtech.org
Tel: (202) 508-9416
Official Event Web site: http://www.itl.nist.gov/Healthcare%20Summit/intro.htm

Who Should Attend
Technology Researchers and Developers
Healthcare and Aging Services Providers
Government Agency Representatives
Healthcare Product Vendors
Company Executives
Standards Development Organizations
Associations
Consumer Organizations

Companies, government, and consumers are developing partnerships to address the challenges of the coming "age wave". Through the application of consumer-directed technologies, opportunities exist to empower individuals to take charge of their own health care and maintain independence.

To achieve this vision, our country must advance the development of new technologies and ensure the interoperability of these devices. To help explore the best way to enable the vision of connected home-based health delivery, Center for Aging Services Technologies, the Department of Commerce's Technology Administration and National Institute of Standards and Technology have come together as partners to host a National Summit to identify issues around the needs and challenges to make interoperability a reality. Recommendations from the Summit will drive needed public and private sector action.

Co-Sponsored by:
Center for Aging Services Technologies (CAST)
U.S. Department of Commerce's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
U.S. Department of Commerce's Technology Administration (TA)

For more information about this Summit, visit the official website at http://www.itl.nist.gov/Healthcare%20Summit/intro.htm

Oracle, ebxml, linux, oh my!

ebxml here and here.

linux:

The Free Standards Group (FSG) and Oracle today announced that Oracle has joined the FSG as a platinum member. FSG is a nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening and promoting Linux as a platform for application development. Oracle plans on contributing to FSG's Linux Standard Base (LSB) workgroup and providing feedback and guidance on its requirements for developing and supporting enterprise applications for Linux. Oracle's support of the FSG and LSB is a significant milestone in the development of the standard and highlights the LSB's success in solving Linux application development issues.

"Linux is a strategic platform for Oracle," said Donald Deutsch. Oracle Vice President, Standards Strategy and Architecture. "Because of that, we felt it's important that we extend our commitment to standards-based computing and join the standardization authority for the Linux community: the Free Standards Group. Their Linux Standard Base is an ideal forum to collaborate with the greater Linux ecosystem on important issues for our customer base. We look forward to working with the FSG and its member companies to continue to drive the adoption of Linux as a solution for our enterprise customers."

"As the largest enterprise software company, Oracle is one of the most influential and important Linux software vendors," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Free Standards Group. "By joining the FSG they send a clear message that they support open standards. Their joining the FSG is a watershed moment for the Linux platform, showing that all major Linux software vendors have joined together to support the LSB and keep Linux from fragmenting. Their participation in our workgroup will help us meet the most pressing needs for Linux users and developers."

Oracle and Linux
Oracle has been a long-standing, key contributor to the Linux community. Oracle produced its first commercial Linux database in 1998. Since that time Oracle has worked steadily to improve the experience of all Linux users. Oracle's Linux Engineering team is a trusted part of the Linux community, and has made major code contributions such as Oracle Cluster File System that is now part of Linux kernel 2.6.16. Oracle has been and will continue contributing Linux related innovations, modifications, documentation and fixes directly to the Linux community on a timely basis.

The Free Standards Group is the standardization and certification authority for Linux. Without a commonly adopted standard, Linux could fragment, proving costly for ISVs to port their applications to the operating system and making it difficult for end users and Linux vendors alike. With the LSB, all parties - distribution vendors, ISVs and end users - benefit as it becomes easier and less costly for software vendors to target Linux, resulting in more applications available for the Linux platform. All major Linux commercial and community organizations support the Free Standards Group.

Three Massachusetts Communities Chosen To Be Test Cases For Digital Health Records

March 29, 2005 By Marianne Kolbasuk McGee, InformationWeek

Backed by $50 million from a health insurer, the multiyear project will test whether digital health records can cut errors and costs in the real world.

Three Massachusetts communities have been chosen as pilot sites for an electronic-health-record project that could serve as the model for statewide adoption of digitized medical-record systems.

... Within each community, health-care providers--including acute-care hospitals or group hospitals, physician practices, long-term care facilities, nursing and home health-care agencies, and community health centers--will implement interoperable E-health records systems.

Medical Banking Infrastructure Investment

<ed.note>In "A secure investment: Banks, hospitals buy into high-tech defense" Robin Roger, Herald Staff Writer makes some points which run parallel to the article "The Identity Management Arms Race - The Next eHealth Hurdle", by John Casillas, in the September/October 2006, The Medical Banking Report, Vol. 3, No. 5. Normally folks only get access to John's cutting edge insights and summary of current medical banking thought if they are MBP members but since the mission of the MBP is to try to communicate the hybrid domain/worldview which is medical banking I want to make this article available more widely ( with his permission ) at the "more" link.</ed.note>   

UBL International Symposium November 16 2006

The first UBL International Symposium is being held in Allerod, Denmark on Thursday November 16 2006. This is a free event and a great opportunity to hear and meet members of the UBL user community from all over the world (but not quite the Universe). For full details see the symposium web site.

Complementing this event is a series of lecture courses designed to assist those who want a more in depth knowledge of how UBL can apply to their business requirements.

On Monday November 13 and Friday November 17, Ken Holman will be presenting on "Practical Universal Business Language Deployment", looking at UBL from a technical perspective of the roles that UBL artefacts play in information systems and how to work with each artefact using hands-on experience.

On Tuesday November 14 and Wednesday November 14, Tim McGrath will be presenting a series of lectures under the title of "Understanding the Universal Business Language Library", covering the design, implementation and customization of the business information models used to create UBL 2.0 without dwelling on the technology involved.

Registrations are now open for these events and those interested should complete the enquiry form.

A Roadmap for Interoperability of eHealth Systems

RIDE is a roadmap project for interoperability of eHealth systems leading to recommendations for actions and to preparatory actions at the European level. This roadmap will prepare the ground for future actions as envisioned in the action plan of the eHealth Communication COM 356 by coordinating various efforts on eHealth interoperability in member states and the associated states. Since it is not realistic to expect to have a single universally accepted clinical data model that will be adhered to all over the Europe and that the clinical practice, terminology systems and EHR systems are all a long way from such a complete harmonization; the RIDE project will address the interoperability of eHealth systems with special emphasis on semantic interoperability.

In order to create RIDE Roadmap, first the European best practices in providing semantic interoperability for eHealth domain will be assessed and the quantified requirements to create a valid roadmap will be identified. Based on these requirements, the goals, and the economical, legal, financial and technological challenges of the industry for the 21st century for achieving interoperability in eHealth solutions will be elaborated. RIDE will also focus on the limitations of the policies and strategies currently used in deploying interoperable eHealth solutions.

A research portal for sharing resources addressing semantic interoperability in eHealth domain will be created and maintained; the key actors and stakeholders will be coordinated around RIDE special interest groups to create a wide consensus at the European level. Through eight RIDE workshops a shared vision for building a Europe-wide semantically interoperable eHealth infrastructure will be created. After assessing the gaps between the 'as-is' situation and the 'to-be' eHealth vision, the emerging trends and opportunities to achieve the vision statement, the required advances in the state of the art research, technology and standards will be identified.

More here

Gartner Sees Boom after OASIS, Other Deliver their Roadmaps

August 23, 2006, Barbara Gengler, "Standards are coming to sooth Business Process Management changes", SAP INFO

In his report, “Findings for Next Generation BPM”, Gartner analyst Jim Sinur, emphasized the next generation of developers will operate primarily at the business service level, dynamically aggregating often-disparate software applets, process, infrastructure, application and process components that deliver coherent functionality to the business. “BPM will be a key ingredient for delivering such services efficiently and flexibly,” he said. “However, formalization in how enterprises model business, how they collaborate and how they build and enhance application services is required to achieve increase benefits from BPM.”

...James Bryce Clark, director of standards, development, OASIS said standards create safety. “People who build on open standards are better insulated from single source and vendor lock-in,” he said. “SOA brings more modularity and substitutability: your systems become less black box and more Lego blocks. In a Lego world, it's far more important that all those hot-swap pieces can snap together interchangeably, with all kinds of other things. Without real modularity, using vendor-neutral standards, you don't get the agility or cost benefits of an open component architecture.”

In describing how the integration of business processes changed over the last few years and how this affected the standards, Clark remarked: “Big question and every analyst has their own theory.” According to Clark, the demand is for a palette of commonly understood business data services and objects that can be invoked and exchanged by a wide range of users and tools. “Standardization of this is at an early stage,” he said. “Things to watch carefully include UBL, BPEL, UN/ECE's core components work, and a fairly new set of projects to homogenize business rule expressions. OMG, W3C, OASIS and others all have stakes in that effort and we hope to see some convergence soon.”

Enable real-world trading partner collaborations in SOA

[ An introduction to the ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement standard ]

By Leo Fernandez, Ash Parikh, Varun Gupta, Javaworld.com

This article is part of a series of short articles that introduce readers to the industry's various Web services standards. These articles provide a quick introduction to these standards, their backgrounds, underlying architectures, benefits, status, and industry adoption. As some of the content may be a depiction of the authors' viewpoints, readers are encouraged to refer to the links provided in Resources to gain a deeper understanding of a particular standard. This article focuses on Web services-enabled trading-partner collaboration standards that influence a service-oriented architecture (SOA).

Focused on Creating an Advanced and Interoperable Medical Network, HIMSS and Internet2 Announce Collaboration

The two organizations will leverage each other’s expertise to explore the viability of an independent and logically interconnected medical network in the United States

CHICAGO, Ill. and ANN ARBOR, Mich. - August 1, 2006 – The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) and Internet2 announced today that the two organizations have created a partnership to explore the development of a secure, reliable and advanced networking solution for the transmission of medical information, messages and images throughout the broad healthcare industry.

The two organizations are exploring a new network designed to offer the health sciences and healthcare sectors a private and secure medium for exchanging health information. A next-generation architecture built to meet federal regulatory requirements, this new network may also have value to offer in the work of the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN).

This ground-breaking collaboration is a natural extension for both not-for-profit organizations. Through a membership of 20,000 individuals, 45 chapters, and more than 300 corporations representing millions of employees, the HIMSS mission focuses on the betterment of healthcare through the most effective use of information technology and management systems. Internet2, the U.S. ’s advanced networking consortium led by 208 U.S. university members in partnership with over 100 industry and government members, works to develop and deploy advanced networks, applications and resources.

“HIMSS and our members look forward to this collaboration with Internet2,” said H. Stephen Lieber, HIMSS president/CEO. “The synergies between HIMSS and Internet2 brought our organizations together to consider and evaluate the feasibility of establishing a network that would meet the evolving needs of the biomedical and healthcare delivery community.”

Since 1999, Internet2 has operated an advanced nationwide network that supports leading-edge Internet technology development for the research and academic community. Internet2 recently announced a major upgrade to this network to provide members 10 times the capacity and speed of its current infrastructure. In addition, the Internet2 community has successfully developed important middleware technologies to address critical issues in authentication and authorization in order to enable active privacy management. Through this partnership, HIMSS and the Internet2 community will work closely together to leverage these leading-edge technologies to explore development of brand new capabilities that meet the specific security and privacy needs of the healthcare industry.

“The research and education community has long understood the potential for leveraging advanced Internet technology to enhance the healthcare industry’s ability to serve the public’s needs, to improve the flow of information for research, to streamline care processes and to enable cost savings,” said Douglas Van Houweling, Internet2 president and CEO. “Our partnership with the HIMSS community is a major step forward in realizing this vision. Together we will work to create a new state-of-the-art platform for biomedical research, education and clinical practice on a national scale.”

Through the partnership, four working groups have been established to explore the requirements and capabilities needed to create an advanced medical network during the next year. HIMSS and Internet2 will join each other’s organizations. Members of both organizations will also join each of the four working groups, which include:

Identity Management that will allow the identification and authentication of individuals regardless of their physical location.

Privacy & Security that will focus on the tools and techniques that will assure the privacy and security of the information that travels on the network.

Biomedical (Health Sciences and Healthcare) Education that will focus on meeting the unique needs and accessing the resources required for biomedical education.

Telehealth that will focus on the implications for clinical practice when a reliable advanced network is available.

In addition, members of both organizations will work for the development and implementation of the network with other partnerships and collaborations, including Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE).

ebBP v2.0.3 packages has been approved as an OASIS Committee Specification

We are actively working within OASIS and with other interested user communities in Asia, United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands to gain the implementation certifications to advance to OASIS Standard and hopefully to ISO to complete the ISO-15000 series (mentioned in OASIS Symposium last week).  We'd welcome your support in this regard.

We've consolidated a wealth of information relevant to our user communities at our public web site at: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=ebxml-bp  v2.0.3 Packages and, if desired, individual schema files, see "Technical Work Produced by the Committee."

ebBP is also in the news:

1. ebBP was featured in the SOA Business Session at the OASIS Symposium, May 2006, see "Expository Work Produced by the Committee."< /li>
2. ebBP was featured at the OMG Think Tank on "Business Collaboration Using ebBP" (also posted at the location above). Thanks to our team member Sally St. Amand for providing interested users and BPM enthusiasts with more details on ebBP at this event.

Both presentations are available at the public web site provided. Also, check out web site:

• Frequently Asked Questions
• ebBP Overview
  • Process definitions for
    • CPPA negotiation
    • UBL or UBL Small Business Subset (SBS) v1.0 process definitions: Features modular definitions and use of new document reference function and also includes CPPA package
    • Dutch government criminal justice instances and use case document
    • Business signal examples
    • Knit wear Italian draft process definitions
  • Draft ebBP editor: User guide and update are to be released very soon.

Note, the UBL Small Business Subset v1.0 is now an OASIS Committee Specification and includes a set of ebBP v2.0.3 modular process definitions, called Universal Business Processes.

As we've said before (and will say again politely), our focus on user communities is paying off - one example being the interest in the UBL community - and we now have achieved Committee Specification. We're interested in those that are developing their own process definitions and can show their successful use of ebBP. We encourage you to check out our public web site and keep abreast of our progress made thus far.  For those using or interested in using ebBP, please contact Dale Moberg and myself (particularly if you are an OASIS member!). Best regards.

Respectfully,
    Dale Moberg, <dmoberg @ us.axway.com>
    Monica J. Martin, monica.martin @ sun.com
    and the ebBP team

Laying the groundwork for 'process oriented architecture'

Just two Joes chattin' about SOA and POA

Bird Flu XML [was: ebXML at the CDC has been a success story]

Integration languages make B2B communication more effective

April 7, 2005 By Johanna Ambrosio, SearchCIO.com

... Granted, it's early going, according to experts, and adopting these kinds of communications protocols is anything but a quick-and-dirty kind of project. It can take years for systems to be built and for customers and partners to be brought fully into the loop.

But that's not stopping the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta. The federal watchdog organization over flu, hepatitis and other health threats has based the messaging portion of its new Public Health Information Network (PHIN) on ebXML. The protocol will act as the standard means for exchanging messages among all 50 states and the CDC. Other users -- including clinical facilities and medical laboratories around the country -- will be brought in as well, said Barry Rhodes, associate director for public health systems development.

At this point, PHIN has been implemented in about 15 state health departments, with the rest to be rolled out over the next three years, Rhodes said. PHIN, based on a bevy of computing and other standards, is about the secure and reliable exchange of information. It's envisioned to be a unifying framework built on top of existing standards whenever possible; for instance, Secure Sockets Layer and some Java technologies are included in the system as well.

For its part, ebXML is "the envelope into which we put messages," Rhodes explained. "Some are XML messages and some are not."

The CDC chose ebXML as the underlying message transport because it liked its approach. "The developers of ebXML looked at the business need of interactions between business partners, of how that could happen." Rhodes said. "We needed that business process modeling perspective that ebXML provides. [In comparison,] Web services tools take a bottoms-up approach -- that approach is more of a solution to a technical issue, of how to distribute functionality across servers and the Internet."

So far, ebXML at the CDC has been a "success story," because it has allowed much greater interoperability than what previously occurred among the states, Rhodes said. "Our ROI is about communication and getting more information to and from the CDC."

Rhodes was not able to share specific data, but he talked about one application -- in operation for years -- that gathers information about notifiable public health threats, including E. coli bacteria and the chickenpox.

"We look at the data and analyze it for things like latency and the amount of data received -- and we have compared those to what was happening pre-PHIN," Rhodes explained. "We've seen a demonstrable increase in the amount of data and a decrease in information latency."

The biggest threat to ebXML adoption, he said, is that it's early enough in the technology's lifecycle that it's not yet a sure bet that all the major computing vendors will support it. "It's one thing to put forth a standard," he said, "but if Microsoft and IBM choose not to implement it, that makes it very difficult. Predicting the future is a hard thing." ...

Raining Data to Present at JAVAONE

Supercharging SOA Registries for Improved Governance and Performance

Representatives from Raining Data Corporation will be presenting “Supercharging SOA Registries with XML Persistence and Management”, Session ID# TS-8098, at the 2006 JavaOne Conference to be held May 16-19, 2006 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

Ash Parikh, Director of Technology & Development, Ajay Ramachandran, CTO & Vice President and Premal Parikh, Lead Architect from Raining Data’s XML-Centric Platforms and Applications Group will discuss this emerging technology topic.

"Raining Data’s TigerLogic XDMS plug-in for Sun Service Registry adds new value to the Sun Service Registry product by enabling direct and efficient search of XML content within our repository using the XQuery standard. The new features complement and accentuate the already rich SOA Governance features of Sun Service Registry," said Farrukh Najmi, Federated Information Management Architect from Sun Microsystems.

This session discusses the following:

Problem:

The core challenge of SOA governance is to provide an adequate governance infrastructure that scales while still providing the agility and flexibility that SOA architectures require. SOA metadata is becoming the lifeblood of SOA implementations, because of its importance to corporate visibility, policy management, and governance. The more dynamic the business environment, the more important metadata becomes.

Enterprises traditionally store metadata and SOA payloads in relational databases and file systems, but these data persistence tools are not well-suited to handle SOA-related metadata and transactional payloads. SOA metadata and payloads are fundamentally XML (hierarchical) and therefore naturally do not fit well in relational databases, and relational database schemas are inflexible which do not adapt well to the always-evolving, often ad hoc schemas in an SOA implementation, especially when business requirements are changing. File systems do not provide the advanced querying and management capabilities that SOA implementations require.

An OASIS White Paper: 'The ebBP' (ebXML Business Process Specification Schema)

By The OASIS Business Process TC (Dale Moberg and Monica J. Martin, co-chairs) For OASIS

Executive Summary

Business processes are key components to enable and drive collaborating partner relationships for electronic business (eBusiness). The ebXML Business Process Specification Schema (BPSS or ebBP) provides capabilities drive those eBusiness collaborative processes. As a part of the original eBusiness eXtensible Markup Language (XML) [ebXML] framework of specifications, the ebBP is targeted for monitoring of collaborative business processes among parties or business partners.

The ebBP (ebXML Business Process Specification Schema) defines a standard language to configure business systems for business collaboration execution between collaborating parties or business partners. It provides:

Standard and extensible business transaction patterns

Support for modular definitions to complex nested activities

Support for use of web service, hybrid and ebXML assets

Semantic tailoring for business processes and business documents

In the second quarter 2006, the OASIS ebBP v2.0.3 set of packages are moving towards OASIS standard. The changes and capabilities defined in the v2.0.x packages have substantially increased the business value-add for using standard process definitions. These definitions support tailoring of eBusiness processes and business documents to serve our