Dr Tom Buckman
MITRE Corporation
8 December, 2000
Authors
Dr Tom Buckman buckmant@mitre.org
Ms Liz Zeisler ezeisler@mitre.org
MITRE

 An Illustration: ‘Dynamic’ Interoperability circa 1998
– The Balkans, programmers, laptops, backpacks
– Timeframe for completion: Any time in the next 72hrs!
 The basic interoperability requirement
– Be prepared to interoperate with? …. we are not sure who, we can only guess when and we don’t know where
 The capability required
– Flexible means to compose networks of applications
 Needs are similar to the current challenges faced by eBusiness communities
– Distributed-applications, viewed as business/mission components that can be combined and composed in
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 A number of initiatives are underway, which address aspects of the problem from a business perspective
– OBI TM (Open Buying on the Internet) - aimed at catalog services and ordering processes
– RosettaNet - networked software application components aimed at IT supply chain processes
– ebXML (electronic business XML) - sponsored by
OASIS & UN/CEFACT aimed at providing EDI type services to the masses
– UDDI (Universal Description, Discovery, and
Integration) - aimed at implementing a naming, directory service and a method for invoking Webbased business services
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 ebXML builds on work done by RosettaNet and OBI TM
XML is the key enabling technology for these initiatives as well as for UDDI
 ebXML provides a framework
– For creating interoperable business components
– For constructing a run-time infrastructure for networking business components
 Why all the fuss?
– Business Components can be configured and networked at Run-Time!
– Current use of components (EJB, ActiveX) focuses on component configuration during implementation
Business level Components provide A Fertile Ground for
Policy Enabled Applications
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 The initiatives add additional level of abstraction to the ISO/OSI Reference Model
Application Layer
Action Layer
Transaction Layer
Process Layer
Service Layer
Message Layer
Transfer Layer
Security Layer
Presentation Layer
Session Layer
Transport Layer
Network Layer
Data Link Layer
Physical Layer
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Components of the ebXML solution
– Business Processes
– Core Business Components
– Registry & Repository (R&R)
– Transport Routing and Packaging (TR&P)
R&R and TR&P provide much of the functionality found in a Message Broker based approach to EAI
– Repository services, Rules processing
– Intelligent routing, Flow control
– APIs, adapters
– Directory services
Policy and security considered in R&R and TR&P
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TPP:
Trading Partner Profile
TPA:
Trading Partner Agreement
Business Process and Information Models
UML to XML Conversion ebXML metamodel XML content
Registration
Retrieval of profiles
& new or updated ebXML Models
Registration
TPP
Internal Business
App
Build
TPP Derives
Registry
Registry Service
Interface
Implementers
Trading Partner
Agreement
Business Service
Interface
Payload
Registration
Registration
Build
TPP
Retrieval of profiles
& new or updated ebXML Models
Shrink-wrapped
App
Business Service
Interface
TPA
Governs
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IBM has recently turned over its work on Trading
Partner Agreement Markup Language (TpaML) to the ebXML initiative
TpaML is an XML based specification that specifies a metadata for trade relationships. Examples of metadata
– Business contact
– Transport facilities
– Message formats (OBI TM , Rosettanet, ebXML, BizTalk)
– Security protocols (S2ML)
– Message vocabularies
Use of an Executable Trading Partner Agreement demonstrated in the IBM Coyote Project in 1998
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 UML models allow precise specification of object behavior, collaboration, workflows, etc.
– Can be documented using XML (example: XMI)
– Description independent of any system or technology
– Could be used to model Trading Partner Agreements
– Precise enough to support automatic code generation
– Enables use of simpler, more flexible component interfaces
 XML standards and agreements key to providing an environment where business components can be combined and composed at run-time
– XML allows key data, data structure and meaning to be provided at run-time independent of systems and technology used
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Development of core components and business process descriptions for specific domains
– Areas least developed with ebXML specification
– Requires collaboration of domain experts and system analysts and engineers
– Efforts are underway in commercial domains and the
Department of Defense
Common, extensible, policy language
Automated generation and execution of policy based
Trading Partner Agreements
– Technical aspects of interoperability are being overcome
– Policy issues are becoming more complex and dynamic, fast becoming the interoperability ‘bottleneck’
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