ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 32 N
0459Date: 2000-02-16
REPLACES: --
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 32
Data Management and Interchange
Secretariat: United States of America (ANSI)
Administered by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory on behalf of ANSI
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DOCUMENT TYPE |
Information from ITTF (Open) |
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TITLE |
Informal meeting report - 2nd UN/CEFACT-OASIS ebXML meeting held from 31 January-4 February 2000 in Orlando, FL USA |
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SOURCE |
ebXML chair (Klaus-Dieter Naujok) |
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PROJECT NUMBER |
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STATUS |
This is liaison information that relates to WG 1 and WG 2 |
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REFERENCES |
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ACTION ID. |
FYI |
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REQUESTED ACTION |
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DUE DATE |
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Number of Pages |
12 |
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LANGUAGE USED |
English |
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DISTRIBUTION |
P & L Members SC Chair WG Conveners and Secretaries |
Douglas Mann, Secretariat, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 32
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory *, 901 D Street, SW., Suite 900, Washington, DC, 20024-2115,
United States of America
Telephone: +1 703 575 2114; Facsimile; +1 703 681 9180; E-mail:
[email protected]available from the JTC 1/SC 32 WebSite
http://bwonotes5.wdc.pnl.gov/SC32/JTC1SC32.nsf*Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNL) administers the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 32 Secretariat on behalf of ANSI
Table of Contents
This report is a personal account by the project team leaders and myself about the 2nd UN/CEFACT-OASIS ebXML meeting held from 31 January-4 February 2000 in Orlando, FL USA. Please note that this is not an official document approved by ebXML plenary, OASIS nor UN/CEFACT. It has been prepared by me, with input from the project team leaders in order provide up-to-date process information in a consistent way to inquiries about this particular meeting.
A quick recap for those who may have forgotten what ebXML is:
There were about 125 participants from major companies, countries (North & South America, Europe and Asia). Please check www.ebxml.org for the participants list. At the start of the plenary the ebXML chair (Klaus-Dieter Naujok) stressed in his address the importance of this meeting. By the end of this week that there must be:
The vice chair (Bob Sutor) gave a summary of activities that took place since the last meeting in November. Our mailing list participation has increased from approximately 120 to close to 300 people. Further approximately 130 organizations are now represented in this initiative. In regard to the ebXML web site, it has been move to OASIS in order to provide consistent and timely updates, as well as provide private areas for project teams on the site. Immediate general goals are to improve general communication and increase the frequency of teleconferences for some project teams.
The rest (majority part) of the opening plenary was to receive updates from each project team identifying progress, work plan for the week, as well as identifying any issues that may have surfaced in order to resolve them this week. This presentations will be available after the ebXML meeting on www.ebxml.org
In summery the reports showed that most, if not all groups got of to a good start after the first meeting. A tremendous amount of work took place between the meetings ensuring that the initiative is on its way. All reports outlined their progress and work plan for the week including issues that need to be resolved at this meeting.
Tuesday to Thursday were used by the project teams to progress their work programs. The steering committee met in the eveinngs to address issues raised. Overall the teams were very productive and no major issues arose. During the Wednesday night steering committee meeting the group agreed that each of the project teams will have at least one of its deliverables out for ebXML review 4 weeks before the Brussels meeting.
This day was used for the closing plenary at which each Project Team leader presented their report outlining the major deliverables of the week and future work items under considerations.
Below is a summary of those reports.
Highlights of the teams work during the week was to interview the Executive team in order to develop a 'talking points' document. Further the team identified and prioritized key activities and developed ebXML Mission, Value Proposition & Strategies.
The team identified its future deliverables, which are:
The team presented to the plenary the ebXML mission, its value and how ebXML will deliver those. As part of the mission, the team delivered the ebXML tag line, which reads:
Creating a Single Global Electronic Market
The ebXML mission is as follows:
To provide an open XML-based infrastructure enabling the global use of electronic business information in an interoperable, secure and consistent manner by all parties.
The value propositions are:
ebXML will deliver the values by:
The Project Team reviewed the first draft of the requirements specification. The outline and organization was simplified to address three major requirements areas:
Issues raised during list server discussions of this draft were resolved and the team will incorporate them into a new revision of the document. The team also arranged for joint meetings with the other project teams on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss requirements as they relate to the respective teams.
The team developed its vision statement which is:
The vision of ebXML with respect to business processes is that organizations be able to express their business processes according to a specification to insure that they are understandable by other organizations thereby enabling integration of business processes
The following items were addressed and completed by the team during the week:
The team presented the goals for the ebXML architecture, which are:
The team had 34 participation during the week, with a core of about 28 members with a 50/50 distribution between XML and EDI backgrounds. Further, the team identified representation to, or connection with, approximately 50 industry associations or standards bodies [national and International].
The objectives for the meeting were to establish a shared common vision within the project Team, identify deliverables and determine a work plan and work method for completing deliverables.
The approach taken was that 'The world does not need another P.O.!'. That a new approach to problem was needed. They identified that the key is 'Context' and utilizing the rich set of existing body of related work.
The deliverables identified are:
The team developed is Vision which is:
ebXML is the glue that ties businesses processes together using XML in a manner that facilitates the interoperable exchange of data by small, medium and large businesses across all industries. ebXML will define how to exchange business documents securely and reliably so that other industry groups are free to focus on the business problems they want to solve.
The team work during the week on its definitions and requirements and started the process of reviewing and selecting standard for the message structure.
The Teams's project overview was presented:
The project teams objectives are:
The objective of the project team is to 'define the business and functional requirements for an ebXML registry and repository' and 'XML-based interfaces to interact with the registry and repository'.
The team's mission is to deliver requirements and specifications for the creation and use of a registry and repository. The registry and repository will be comprehensive, distributed, business analysis driven, and support the runtime and development viewpoints of the ebXML architecture.
The Business requirements for the repository were presented as:
The team completed the following items during the week:
The team did not meet during the week since its Terms of Reference (ToR) were not developed until the meeting. However, the project team leader (Dick Raman) and project editor (Bob Glushko) visited all other project teams in order to identify their work in regard to the ToR.
Below are the ToR as approved by the executive committee.
The purpose of the Technical Coordination and Support Project Team is coordinate the work among the ebXML's technical project teams in order to identify inconsistency among their deliverables. Other responsibilities include defining ebXML compliance in regard to implementing ebXML deliverables. Further, the Technical Coordination and Support Project Team shall research external work related to the overall ebXML deliverables in regard to their applicability and benefits to the ebXML's work efforts.
To support the mission and objectives of ebXML and its project teams.
It is important to note that the ebXML participants are drawn from many of the very groups that two years ago doubted the future of XML for serious business interchanges. The 125 participants are seasoned veterans of twenty years of electronic business combined with the new guard of the .COM era. The excitement, energy, commitment and innovation were self-evident as the various working groups focused this week on the real technical specifications required to meet the mission focus.
Orlando this week has been the catalyst for a sea of change within the information industry. The ebXML initiative has laid the foundation that will underpin next generation electronic business. Now ebXML itself is undoubtedly set to deliver the vision of 'Creating a Single Global Electronic Market'.
With the first draft of the 'Conceptual Architecture' being available in a week, ebXML will has put a stake in the ground that will show that this effort is substantial. By the time the group will met again in Brussels, at least 5 more draft specifications will have been put out for review.
The dates and location for the meetings in 2000 are:
This week has been deeply satisfying to see that when something is done well, our global community stands to benefit enormously. I look forward to the point when I am able to use the first ebXML compliant interchanges in a live system across the Internet.
I agree with David Webber, North American Chair of the XML/edi Group, when he states:
'This may very well prove to be a major event of the new millennium, revolutionizing how business transactions are tracked, effecting worldwide environmental impacts, removing the paper from the process, and by empowering people to create whole new work models.'
The issue was raised during the meeting in regard to the fact that ebXML is developing a set of specifications on 'How to create a mouse trop' but will itself not 'create the mouse trap'. Some participants are raising the question if there should not be a phase two that will create the mouse trap. The executive committee will address this issue in order to present its view to the group at the Brussels meeting.
For information on ebXML please visit www.ebXML.org. You will find the participants list and soon all the presentations and contributions from the first meeting.