How EDI fits into a Web Services world
Presented by Krishna Prasad
GM (Technology), HCL EAI
Services (Formerly
Aalayance )
Agenda
•
•
•
•
Business Integration Technology
EDI
Competing technologies
Emerging Web Services technologies that
coexist with EDI
• Conclusion
Business Integration
Technology
Business Integration (BI) Technology
• Definition:
• BI = Business to business communication
(B2B) + Enterprise application integration
(EAI).
• Example:
• In a typical supply chain, plant and supplier
need to collaborate and ERP system of each
partner has to be updated with this
collaborations.
Business Integration (BI) Technology
• Necessary (but not sufficient) conditions
for success of BI technology:
– Partner acceptance of the Business
Integration standard
– Vendor consensus on implementing
standards
– Simplicity
Electronic Data Interchange
(EDI)
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
• Used for Business to Business communication
• Dominant in supply chain management
• Established Standards in EDI:
– ANSI X12 (USA)
– EDIFact (Europe)
– HIPAA (Healthcare)
• Document standards – at least 250+
– E.g., PO (850), ASN (856)
• Transport standards
– E.g., VAN, AS2
• Trading partner agreement framework
Example implementation – EDI in
Publication Industry
Retail Shop
GIS
Process
modeler
Community
Libraries
Schools/
Colleges
FTP/
HTTP
Gentran 6.x
For Mapping
Gentran
Integration
to
Enterprise
System
Enterprise
System
Worldwide EDI market revenue
What’s wrong with EDI?
• EDI is
– Arcane: Age old Cobol-like data structures
– Costly:
• Used to require Value added Network (VAN)
• High development and support costs
– Error-prone: Needs manual data collection
and data entry
Why EDI will stay anyway?
• Locked up investment in EDI
• Backing by big guys:
– WalMart, Novartis and Addison Wesley
– Big guys drive partners to adopt it as well
• Support from powerful vendors:
– GE, Sterling Commerce
• Critical mass of usage resulting in Return
on Investment (ROI) for the big guys.
Why EDI will stay anyway?
• AS2 (EDI over HTTP) reduced cost by
eliminating VAN. Walmart drove adoption
of AS2.
• No real solution is in sight given the wide
variations in processes, vocabularies and
practices around the world.
Competing Technologies
- RosettaNet
- ebXML
RosettaNet
• RosettaNet standard is widely accepted in
electronics industry by leaders like Intel, Dell,
National Semiconductors.
• Standardizes business processes in the form of
PIPs and RNIF.
• They were the first to standardize on XML as a
standard payload.
• RosettaNet is backed by vendors like Adobe,
Inovis, National Semiconductors and Dell.
• Will continue as a niche player
Typical RosettaNet implementation
Source: WebLlogic
ebXML
• ebXML can be broken down into modules like,
– ebMS (Messaging services)
– ebBPSS (Business process Definitions)
– ebCPPA (Collaborative protocol for Partner Agreement)
• ebXML is trying to solve too many challenges. It is a complex
set of standards.
• We haven’t come across any real implementation of ebXML
• ebMS diverges from Web Services standards
• ebBPSS is in competition with BPEL that has much better
momentum.
• In terms of vendor backing, it is only backed by standard
committee like Oasis. It is not backed by any big vendors
(IBM/Oracle/SAP).
• ebXML is not where the money is
Emerging Web Services technologies
(that coexist with EDI)
Emerging Web Services technologies
• Radio Frequency Identifier (RFID) and Electronic
Product Code Information System (EPCIS)
standards emerging around Web Services for
product tracking in the supply chain space.
• Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) for
process execution
• Enterprise Service Architecture (ESA) for hooking up
SAP into BPEL’s process execution
• Frameworks like Web Services Invocation
Framework (WSIF)
RFID Revolution: ALE and EPCIS
• EPCGlobalInc.org: Consortium evolving a
EPCGlobal Network standard.
• What is EPCGlobal Network?
– A global network (web) of information about product
items
– Consists of:
•
•
•
•
Electronic Product code (EPC)
EPC Middleware (ALE)
Discovery Services
EPCIS
RFID Technology building blocks
Web
Services
protocol
Web
Services
protocol
Source: Cambridge Auto-ID Labs
RFID/EPCIS - Impact on EDI
• EDI Pushes data. This means:
– We can’t get data on-demand. E.g., Balance on
Hand (BoH) cannot be dynamically obtained.
– We can’t pull missing data. E.g., Missing Item master
record cannot be pulled.
• EPCIS complements EDI to provide pull capabilities.
• RFID reduces errors by replacing manual data
collection and data entry.
• EPCIS communicates with each other using cost
effective Web Services standards
Use case - Associating an unexpected
shipment to a purchase order.
Orphan Item came in
shipment to retailer
Stop
Sends PO information
to requestor’s EPCIS
system. Which locates
the PO and fulfils it.
The retailer’s EPCIS
query’s the EPCglobal
Discovery Services to
locate the
manufacturer’s EPCIS.
The ONS sends the
retailer’s EPCIS the
location of the
manufacture’s EPCIS.
Manufacture
r
authenticate
s the
requester
No
Stop
Yes
Manufacturer gets the
Serial number and
identifies which PO the
item belongs to
Use case - On-demand inventory count with help from EPCIS
stores of retailers and warehouses
Manufacturer
request a BoH thru’
a web screen
EPCIS query on EPCglobal
Network for inventory levels in
retailer DCs and stores. The
Web appl. shows list of
participating retailers,
Walmart, Sam’s Club, etc.
User selects Walmart
Software uses
EPCglobal
Network to find
Wal*Mart
Stores’ EPCIS and
retrieve BoH for
selected product
BPEL
• EDI vendors did not use a well designed custom
business process modeling tools.
• BPEL brings the benefits of standardization.
– Rich process model including parallel execution (flow), event
handling and alarms
– Compensatory mechanisms for handling failures in long running
transactions
– Have WSDL? BPEL can use it. Web Services of course! Legacy
apps connected by WSIF via JCA/JDBC.
• What it doesn’t do,
– No user interaction. Semi automated process cannot be
modeled.
– No in-built support for transformation
BPEL Architecture: Typical One Request,
One of Two Possible Responses
Request could be to order a product online, and the First
response could be either an in stock message, or an out of stock
message.
Source: Oracle
ESA
• SAP’s initiative to standardize how enterprise applications provide
Web Services interfaces.
• An Enterprise Service is a Web Services whose interfaces fit into a
“pattern” with Create, Retrieve, Update, Delete, Query and Action
operations named and defined according to a convention.
• Tools can take advantage of the conventions to discover and
integrate compliant enterprise services.
• All SAP products to provide ESA compliant Web Services
interfaces by 2007
• Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, EMC, Intel and Macromedia have licensed
ESA from SAP.
What is WSIF, how it rescues BPEL?
• Framework from Apache that lets you access back-end
systems, while providing a WSDL interface to BPEL.
• Use case:
–
A prescription drug supplier had existing HTTP GET interfaces in
front of mainframe batch processes.
–
A custom WSIF binding to support HTTP GET requests was built.
–
The WSDL interface to this HTTP "Web Services" means that
standard BPEL processes can interact with the mainframe
applications without requiring support for a new interface.
Conclusion
Conclusion
• EDI will continue as the backbone of BI.
• RosettaNet will be a niche player.
• ebXML isn’t succeeding in the market place.
• All new developments will revolve around Web Services.
• EPCIS complements static/push/batch EDI with dynamic
capabilities and reduces errors.
• BPEL standardizes business process execution.
• ESA standardizes Web Services interfaces to legacy applications.
• Frameworks like WSIF is emerging to integrate BPEL with legacy
systems.
pkrishna@aalayance.com