Overview: An industry’s ability to use electronic commerce
(EC) effectively depends primarily on that industry’s ability to
create, manipulate, and transmit intelligent information among partners
and throughout the industry. The eXtensible Markup Language (XML),
which is already targeted as the enabling technology for EC, is
the primary standard by which industries are defining the structure
and semantics of their information. The ebXML (Electronic Business
using XML) specifications enable enterprises of any size and in
any geographical location to conduct business over the Internet.
Together, the ebXML Registry and Messaging standards provide the
mechanism to discover and retrieve documents, templates, and software
(i.e., objects and resources) and exchange these documents in a
secure and reliable manner. Specifically the ebXML Registry specifications
define interoperable registries and repositories with an interface
that enables submission, query, and retrieval on the contents of
the registry. The ebXML Messaging specification provides a secure
and reliable method for exchanging electronic business.
Industry Need Addressed: Industry consortiums and standards
organizations are using XML to define their own vocabularies to
describe their information and transactions. The vocabularies, templates,
and processes used by these groups to transact business and exchange
information must be accessible by all partners at any time. Furthermore,
newcomers to the partnerships must be able to discover these documents
and retrieve them in a secure manner. A registry and repository
coupled with messaging services can be used to provide this service.
A series of registries and repositories can link many organizations
and industries, acting as a web of registries for discovery. The
messaging services can provide the mechanism to transport, route,
and package transactions using standard Internet technologies. Standards
are needed to ensure interoperability of these registries and messages.
Conformance tests must be available to registry and messaging system
builders to help them ensure that their software correctly implements
the specifications.
NIST/ITL Approach: NIST/ITL is working with the Organization
for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS),
an industry consortium for defining specifications for the discovery
and retrieval of XML-related documents and for developing a conformance
testing framework. Through the OASIS/ebXML Registry Technical Committee,
NIST/ITL influences the quality, correctness, and testability of
registry specifications. Through the OASIS/ebXML Implementation
Technical Committee, NIST/ITL facilitates the creation of interoperable
ebXML infrastructures and applications by developing a conformance
testing framework. The testing framework will provide a unified
approach to developing tests for all ebXML specifications. This
unified approach to testing ebXML Messaging Services, Registry,
and other ebXML specifications will save development resources and
provide a uniform test design and reporting format.
Impact: The completion of the OASIS/ebXML Registry specifications
and conformance tests helps the industry move forward in providing
cost-effective, reliable tools for electronic commerce. The development
of an ebXML Testing Framework and ebXML Messaging conformance tests
provide a valuable tool for facilitating the continued development
of ebXML conformance tests for any ebXML specification. This work
would provide the infrastructure technologies and measurements to
determine if a particular implementation is conformant to the specification
and therefore can be used in the open exchange of structured data.
Ultimately, this will allow all organizations, including small and
medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to make appropriate choices with
regard to EC tools and applications, and will allow them access
to the emerging supply chain and industry partnership EC models.
