Kick-off European ebXML Interoperability Pilot Project

Brussels, 2002-09-25

Pim van der Eijk

Overview

CEN ISSS eBES Vendor Forum Background and status

Report on Questionnaire Objectives, scope, capabilities, interests

Moving forward Determine structure and timeline Make working arrangements

CEN ISSS eBES Vendor Forum

CEN ISSS eBES workshop initiative: Incompatibility of B2Bi systems Market needs for combined XML and EDI solutions Vendors need to give clarity on strategy to users SME involvement Lack of participation of European vendors in ebXML Defend European point of view in the global ebXML

arena Promote participation in UN/CEFACT and OASIS work

Mission and process

Vendor Forum Mission statement:“Mobilizing Vendor involvement in the

standardization process, the awareness and the implementation of ebXML in Europe.”

CEN workshop process Similar to OASIS Technical Committee (TC) Delivers “CEN Workshop Agreements” (CWA)

Tasks and projects

Tasks: Education, awareness, standardization,

technical assessment and migration Projects:

ebXML interoperability project

Status First meeting (March):

Brainstorm session Initial idea for ebXML interoperability project

Second meeting (June): Decision to focus on pilot Request to OASIS to endorse and support

OASIS supports: Internationalization of member base Facilitate access to technical work

Status (cont’d)

Invitation letter to participate (August) States some participation requirements Some twenty respondents

Questionnaire (September) Ten respondents Input for scoping discussion, reported on

today

Today

Kick-off meeting: Decide on objectives and scope Understand each other’s interests and capabilities Form project teams Make working arrangements, including decision

on commitment Requirements:

Vendors to commit to contribute resources Users to help provide business cases

Today (cont’d)

Format:1. Plenary presentation of results

Interactivity, please !

2. Make working arrangements: Perhaps split up in groups for discussion

3. Wrap up

Report on Questionnaire

Objectives of the questionnaire

Understand the requirements of all participants before defining and starting the project

Determine which ebXML modules vendors: already implement in their products. want to get from other participants, or develop in this

project. want to verify interoperability for.

Get input on business scenario for demonstrator From (customers of) vendors From users and industry groups

Respondents

CIDX / Solvay (BE) Cronos / XT-I (BE) Dan Net (DA) EAN (BE) Excelon (US/NL)

Seeburger (GE) Software AG (GE/NL) Sun Microsystems (US/CH) TIE (NL) XML Global (CA)

Sections in the questionnaire

Objectives and scope Level of support for ebXML modules in your

products Priority for ebXML modules Other relevant software Case studies Payload (content) formats Liaisons Process and IPR

Objectives and goals: score

1. Strongly disagree

2. Disagree

3. Agree conditionally

4. Agree

5. Strongly agree

Objectives and goals: averagedScore

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

1 Le

ading

in Euro

pe

2 Complem

enta

ry S

ervic

e Offe

ring

3. F

ocus

on m

ature

par

ts

4 Ver

ify in

tero

perab

ility

5 Lim

ited r

esou

rces

6 Lim

ited d

uratio

n

7 Deliv

er d

emons

trato

r

8 M

igrat

ion s

cenar

ios

9 Find

fund

ing

Score

Difference from average

-3.5

-3

-2.5

-2

-1.5

-1

-0.5

0

0.5

1

1.5

CIDX Cronos Dannet EAN Excelon Seeburger SoftwareAG

Sun TIE XML Global

1 Leading in Europe

2 Complementary Service Offering

3. Focus on mature parts

4 Verify interoperability

Disagreements

“Leading in Europe” and “Complementary products/services” EAN: ? has global (not European) focus, user

organization CIDX: ? not applicable, user organization

“Focus on mature parts, esp. ebMS” Sun: CPPA and BPSS as important as ebMS Cronos: don’t just work on ebMS, rest is important too XML Global: start with the registry

-2.5

-2

-1.5

-1

-0.5

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

CIDX Cronos Dannet EAN Excelon Seeburger Software AG Sun TIE XML Global

5 Limited resources

6 Limited duration

7 Deliver demonstrator

8 Migration scenarios

9 Find funding

Disagreements (cont’d) “Limited resources, use (pre)sales budget”

(3.6): Seeburger (2): interoperability is first of all about

implementation, sales/marketing comes next TIE (2): some participants will need to do a lot

of technical work, implementations are far from plug-and-play yet

“Deliver demonstrator” (4.3): XML Global (3): focus is to show that ebXML

methodology is useful and relevant

Disagreements (cont’d)

Migration scenarios (avg. 3.4) XML Global (2): work from registry, via CPP,

to integration with back-end systems of real users

Sun (2): focus on SME user not EDI user Find funding (4.1)

TIE (2): first do the technical interoperability work, otherwise project will fail

Objectives and goals: summary (tentative, my interpretation) Start with limited scope and duration

mainly marketing exercise for some but serious investment, technical effort for others

Aim for a demonstrator that is a real-life case study is delivered and marketable in summer 2003 demonstrates what ebXML is designed for might help a consortium apply for FP-6 funding

Get a basic infrastructure operational quickly but understand that some of us are at an early stage still leveraging components from other participants

Support for ebXML scores

1. No implementation, or alpha version for internal use only; 2. Partial implementation, not generally available, does not

yet have the maturity of a product, usable under strict conditions;

3. Implementation available, but not yet tested for interoperability, usable for initial pilot projects but not for production use;

4. Reasonably complete, usable in end-user projects, but interoperability not yet verified;

5. Complete, commercially available implementation that has passed interoperability / conformance testing and is being used in production settings.

Module support: averageAverage score

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

ebXML Messaging ebXML Registry ebXML CPPA BPSS Core Components

Module

Sco

re

Average score

Module support: difference from average

Difference from average score per module

-4

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

4

CIDX Cronos Dannet EAN Excelon Seeburger Software AG Sun TIE XML Global

Participants

Sco

re -

ave

rag

e ebXML Messaging

ebXML Registry

ebXML CPPA

BPSS

Core Components

?

Module support summary

Participants in all three categories Advanced, intermediate, just starting

Emphasis clearly on messaging and collaboration protocols

Other modules supported by “specialists”

Participants collectively implement significant parts of ebXML already !!

Module priority scores

1. Unimportant, the project should not waste its time looking into this;

2. Not important, but nice to have; 3. Moderately important, if possible the project

should have a look at this;4. Very important, the project should make an

strong effort to be able to provide this; 5. Essential, the project is not a success unless

this module is implemented;

Module priority results: average Average score

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

ebXML Messaging ebXML Registry ebXML CPPA BPSS Core Components

ebXML modules

Average score

Module priority results per vendorebXML module priority

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

CIDX Cronos Dannet EAN Excelon Seeburger Software AG Sun TIE XML Global

Sco

re p

er v

end

or

min

us

aver

age

ebXML Messaging

ebXML Registry

ebXML CPPA

BPSS

Core Components

Module priority summary

Broad agreement that focus should be on ebXML messaging Configured by Collaboration Protocol

Agreements Much less agreement on registry, core

components, BPSS Vendors that are “further ahead” tend to be

more cautious CC and BPSS

Other software

CIDX: CIDX tools Cronos: transformation Dan Net: transformation Excelon: BPM, modelling Seeburger: EAI, transformation, workflow Sun: UBL concepts Software AG: XML server, EAI, transformation TIE: integration, transformation, forms XML Global: Security, transformation, message store,

payload generation

Case studies

“We wish that this project is very closely aligned to real world issues, and so test scenarios and payloads and such should come directly from end customers and vertical organizations” (Sun)

“It is important that this is a real world demonstrator and as such the ebXML aspects must be interfaced to demonstrate a real end-end, possibly multi-party, system” (TIE)

User participation today

CIDX: Chemical Industry XML B2B standard Raymond Betz (Solvay, Brussels) has offered to

discuss a potential case study EAN:

Involved in OASIS interoperability work EAN UK (e-Centre) has an ebXML project

under way Bolivar Pereira (EAN International, Brussels)

Other suggestions

From participants: Seeburger: Papinet Software AG: Accord, Opentrans Sun: have a high-level scenario; Sabre?

At a later stage: CEN EEG9 (healthcare informatics) Government and tax agencies, XBRL “Some other large multinational companies”

Message payload scores

1. Irrelevant

2. Somewhat important

3. Important

4. Very important

5. Essential

Payload preference averagePayload formats average score

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

5

ACORD CIDX xCBL EAN-UCC XML UBL OAG RosettaNet UN/EDIFACT

Score

Preference variation per vendorPayload preference per vendor

-4

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

CIDX Cronos Dannet EAN Excelon Seeburger Software AG Sun TIE XML Global

ACORD

CIDX

xCBL

EAN-UCC XML

UBL

OAG

RosettaNet

UN/EDIFACT

Payload format summary

Clear preference for UN/EDIFACT EAN-UCC XML as next best

No strong preference for other formats Plus, lack of agreement

Decision on payload format is dependent on business process and should be based on

the demonstrator scenario

Liaisons

OASIS IIC TC: interoperability guidelines Drummond Group for UC-Council:

(commercial) “reference implementation” Second series completes in November

Other ebXML pilots worldwide Relevant project teams in UN/CEFACT

and OASIS

OASIS ebXML Implementation, Interoperability Conformance TC

Chaired by Jacques Durand (Fujitsu) Work on interoperability guidelines and

automated test facilities Now moving to industry deployment

(templates for EAN-XML, RosettaNet) Want to coordinate various initiatives

US (Drummond Group, OAG/NIST), Japan (ECOM), Europe

OASIS IIC (cont’d)

Main input to our project Basic ebXML interoperability guidelines Working on

“core test suite” synthesized from various initiatives Definition of “interoperability profiles”

Template mechanism for project-specific extensions Generalized from EAN input

Deliverable from our project to IIC: A deployment template for EDIFACT?

Liaison via Steve Yung (Sun), Bolivar Pereira (EAN)

Other liaisons

OASIS ebXML Messaging TC Ian Jones, chair (BT, UK) Expressed willingness and interest to support

ebXML joint coordination and marketing teams

Research projects Started talking to OpenXchange Other DG Information Society projects

Participation in interoperability projects

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5

CIDX Cronos Dannet EAN Excelon Seeburger Software AG Sun TIE XML Global

Others

e-centre

DGI 2

DGI 1

OASIS IIC

Process issues

Process

Vendor Forum is a project of eBES eBES is a CEN ISSS “workshop” By default, should adopt CEN process and

IPR policy OASIS endorsed and supported

Joint membership condition CEN, OASIS to work out formal relation

Intellectual property

According to questionnaire, there are no objections to royalty-free license “This is ebXML”

Vendors will retain all rights over their products No automatic endorsement by others

Suggestion: transfer IP to OASIS IIC So there is one place maintaining this Discussion topic for CEN ISSS and OASIS

Moving forward

Here the discussion should become very interactive …

Proposal: Two main work areas 1: Messaging interoperability related:

Bottom up, technical focus Start with ebMS and ebCPPA Sort out infrastructure issues Leverage related projects and experience

2: Business-oriented, demonstrator related: Top down, business process-oriented Start with UML use case, activity etc. diagrams towards

BPSS collaborations, business transactions Adopt an existing payload, e.g. EDIFACT

XML Global: registry-centric approach

Start with ebXML registry hosted by CEN Participants start adding CPPs of real

organizations Participants implement BSI for those CPPs Some CPA negotiation ? … ?

Offering XML Global Registry free of charge ebRR 2.0 compliant implementation

Can be viewed as 3rd work area, orthogonal to other two?

Area 1: Interoperability testing

Leverage related projects: IIC, e-Centre, Drummond Group Participants involved in both: (EAN), Excelon, Sun, XML

Global Select or define test suite

IIC testing framework and suites Internal test suites of participants? Messaging profile

Infrastructure Computers, network, software, firewalls, ebXML MSH

send and receive, ping and pong CPPA configurable

Interoperability testing (cont’d)

Here we need input from participants with experience …

Practical issues Do we need central infrastructure? (hardware,

OS, network etc.) or can this be done remotely?

What are the steps to take? Some simulated back-end, replaceable by

“real” integration tools

Interoperability testing (cont’d)

Need for “two speed” project1. Participants with advanced, conformant

implementations

2. Participants that have initial / prototype implementations only

Need a way to support both

Area 2: Demonstrator definition

Decide on final project deliverable Work back from there and determine steps to

take Which business case?

Process, information, parties involved … Payload format

Provided by which participants?

Project teams

This would give (at least) three initial teams ebMS team, “advanced” ebMS team, “catching up” Business case team

Teams should have their own meetings / conference calls in addition to the plenary ones

Break out in groups

……………………………..

Tasks

Write charter, project plan Set up conference calls, mailing lists etc. ….