ebXML Business Process Specification Advances Within OASIS

10/21/2003

Developers of the ebXML Business Process Specification Schema (BPSS) have decided to advance their work under the technical process of the OASIS international standards consortium.

The newly formed OASIS ebXML Business Process (BP) Technical Committee will further define the royalty-free ebXML BPSS model for binary and multiparty business collaborations both within and between enterprises. ebXML BP will support the exchange of standards-based business process definitions, such as those developed by industry-specific organizations, enabling standard, interoperable process configurations that effectively meet business collaboration requirements for analysis, design, and production use.

ebXML BP is part of the modular suite of specifications that enable enterprises of any size, in any global region to conduct business using the Internet. ebXML comprises open, royalty-free standards for business process collaboration, core data components, collaboration protocol agreements, messaging, and registries and repositories. ebXML implementers span the globe and include General Motors, the US Center for Disease Control, the Pan Asia e-Trade Alliance, and TransCanada Pipelines. RosettaNet has formally adopted ebXML BPSS as a mechanism for expressing business collaborations involving RosettaNet PIPs®, and government agencies around the world recommend the use of ebXML.

"ebXML is the only framework that is at the same time generic and flexible and can be used for inter-administrations relations," concluded the European Commission's Interchange of Data between Administrations (IDA) in its study, "Business to Business Frameworks for IDA Networks." "Moreover, ebXML is clearly the only trend for organised business communities. The general recommendation is to follow ebXML standards as much as possible."

"ebXML BP will enable legally enforceable, easily manageable, and fully traceable collaborations," said Dale Moberg of Cyclone Commerce, convenor and proposed co-chair of the OASIS ebXML BP Technical Committee. "Industry standards organizations will be able to use ebXML BP schemas and formats to specify business process definitions for their own collaboration communities."

The OASIS ebXML BP TC will base its work on ebXML BPSS version 1.01, jointly developed by OASIS and the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (CEFACT) and on derivative work expected to be donated by a range of participants.

"We're excited to continue this work within the OASIS technical process," noted Monica J. Martin of Sun Microsystems, proposed co-chair of the OASIS ebXML BP Technical Committee. "OASIS provides an environment for us to adhere to the ebXML principles of a loosely coupled, highly aligned specification set, while enabling support for other emerging Web service technologies, OASIS specifications, and products from industry standards organizations."

The OASIS ebXML BP Technical Committee plans to collaborate with other relevant OASIS committees, such as those developing the Web Services Business Process Execution Language (WSBPEL), the ebXML Message Service Standard, the ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement (CPP/A) Standard and the OASIS e-Government Technical Committee. Members of the new committee will also work to align with relevant efforts of other organizations, such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Service Architecture Working Group and Web Services Choreography Working Group, RosettaNet, the Open Applications Group Inc. (OAGI), and CEFACT.

OASIS ebXML BP Technical Committee members include Cyclone Commerce, Fujitsu, Sterling Commerce, Sun Microsystems, and others. Participation remains open to all organizations and individuals, and OASIS will host a mail list for public comment.

"We encourage business analysts, enterprise developers, and business process users to become actively involved in this work," said Karl Best, vice president of OASIS. "Trade groups, industry standards bodies, and end-users are welcome to contribute feature requests to make the sequencing constructs valuable for their specialized business needs and issues. Technology vendors wishing to contribute to ebXML BP under royalty-free terms also are urged to join."

“Sterling Commerce is proud to continue its involvement with business processes standards under the new OASIS ebXML BP Technical Committee. Sterling believes strongly in the importance of business process standards and has been a leader in supporting business process languages, such as ebXML Business Process Specification Schema, in its products," said Neelakantan Kartha, Ph.D, Senior Software Architect, Standards and Strategic Technology, Sterling Commerce.

"Sun supports ebXML and its continued development at OASIS as an answer to customer demand for a simple framework for conducting electronic business using cheap, widely deployed and dependable technologies," noted Mark Bauhaus, VP, Java Web Services, Sun Microsystems. "The ebXML framework is not a vision: it is a reality, a solution available and in deployment today. We believe the ebXML BP work at OASIS will enable continued delivery on ebXML's promise of an interoperable suite of modular specifications that are useful today, while incorporating new technology developments -- such as Web services -- as appropriate to keep ebXML useful for the long-term future."

ebXML (Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language) was initiated in 1999 as a joint effort of OASIS and CEFACT. Since the publication of the full suite in 2001, customer deployments and vendor adoption of ebXML have grown worldwide, along with open source projects. To date, four ebXML specifications have been ratified as OASIS Standards.

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, global 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. OASIS produces worldwide standards for security, Web services, conformance, business transactions, electronic publishing, topic maps and interoperability within and between marketplaces. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 2,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries.

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