For more information, see the TC Charter and FAQ.
ebXML Knowledge base pages provide a reliable basis of technical and educational information on the standards. Content is created and maintained by the XML.org Editorial Board for ebXML.
September 1999
United Nations and OASIS Join Forces to Produce Global XML Framework for Electronic Business
December 1999
Organizations from Around the World Gather to Launch ebXML
March 2000
ebXML Initiative Releases First Technical Specifications for Public Comment
May 2000
ebXML Moves Forward on Defining Global Electronic Business Infrastructure
August 2000
ebXML Showcases Dynamic Trading Network
September 2000
ebXML Sets Standards for Electronic Trading Partner Agreements
850,000 Companies Select ebXML for New Global Commerce Internet Protocol
February 2001
ebXML Integrates SOAP Into Messaging Services Specification
ebXML Technical Architecture Specification Approved
April 2001
ebXML Messaging Services Specification Gains RosettaNet Support
May 2001
ebXML Approved: UN/CEFACT and OASIS Deliver on 18-Month Initiative
June 2001
OASIS Forms ebXML Technical Committees
July 2001
UN/CEFACT Forms e-Business Transition Ad Hoc Working Group
May 2002
ebXML Registry Approved as OASIS Standards
September 2002
ebXML Messaging Service Specification Approved As OASIS Standard
December 2002
ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement Ratified as OASIS Standard
June 2003
UN/CEFACT Plenary Endorses Latest ebXML Specifications
October 2003
ebXML Business Process Specification Advances Within OASIS
March 2004
Review answers to the frequently asked questions below. Post new questions and additional comments at the FAQ Forum. See also: ebBP FAQ, ebCPPA FAQ, ebMS FAQ, and Registry FAQ.
OASIS provides ebXML specifications free of charge. There are no royalties or fees associated with the use of the ebXML specifications. Openness of the ebXML specifications is a requirement in order to encourage adoption.
ebXML's requirements begin with the objective to promote the use of shrink-wrapped, plug-and-play software to support its messages. By keeping that focus paramount, as well as taking advantage of the economies of scale presented by the Internet, ebXML's design and technical architecture remain within the reach of smaller businesses.
If a company does not yet exchange electronic business data, ebXML means making the connections to send and receive these messages, authenticating other parties, editing the contents of the messages, and mapping the data to internal systems. If a company already uses EDI or other business data exchange protocols, it may have already established these facilities but may still need to write new routines for ebXML messages. Packaged software often makes these functions transparent to end-users.
Companies with systems set up for business data exchange will probably have fewer changes in business processes than those starting from scratch. ebXML builds on the lessons learned from EDI, particularly the need to identify trading partners and messages and account for all message traffic. The best practices established for effective EDI apply to ebXML. ebXML also identifies common data objects, called core components, that allow companies to interchange standard EDI data with XML vocabularies compliant with the ebXML specifications.
ebXML supports messages and services among businesses as well as between businesses and consumers. For business-to-consumer exchanges, however, the specifications define only the services and architecture on the business end, not customer screens or interactions.
ebXML was designed to be independent of equipment, software platforms or communication networks. As long as a system supports standard Internet transport protocols and XML, it should also support ebXML.
ebXML is being used around the globe by a wide variety of industries. Review (and add to) the list of deployments and learn more about available case studies.
ebXML supports electronic interchange by parties in a peer-to-peer relationship when the interchange crosses domains of control. The specifications enable the composition of distinct components that can be used individually, together with the other specifications in the framework, or with other emerging technologies to accomplish a larger activity or business goal.
Five capabilities were identified as part of the initial objective for ebXML, and remain important to conduct electronic trading relationships among business parties. They are:
Get to know all the standards and their practical application for eBusiness - see this summary on the News page where we show you how ebXML Webinars Generate Community Interest.
The ebXML Business Process (ebBP) OASIS Standard provides a business process foundation that promotes the automation and predictable exchange of business collaboration definitions using XML. The specification is advanced by the OASIS ebXML Business Process Technical Committee, a group that remains open to new participation.
Collaborative business processes using ebBP encompass some basic premises and include:
Activities
Partners or parties
Roles that partners or parties assume
Conditions whereby they interact
Business transaction patterns that support the activities and the conditions expected
The ebBP defines a standard language to configure business systems for business collaboration execution between collaborating parties or business partners. It is targeted for monitoring of collaborative business processes these entities. Today, ebBP has evolved from previous versions to integrate the use of other emerging technologies as part of eBusiness solutions focused on SOA.
Benefits
The ebBP OASIS Standard is a technical business process specification. It defines a standard language so that business systems can be configured to support the execution of business collaborations between partners or collaborating parties rather than the processing accomplished from the perspective of one business partner. The formal designation has been eBusiness Extensible Markup Language (ebXML) Business Process Specification Schema (BPSS). It is more commonly known as ebBP (after the OASIS ebXML Business Process Technical Committee).
A Business Transaction is realized as Business Document Flows between Requesting and Responding parties performing roles. A Business Transaction is a specialized protocol used to achieve and support enforceable transaction semantics and state alignment between collaborating parties. The patterns listed in the technical specification provide semantic guidance, and options for a Business Transaction. One or more Business Signals can be exchanged as part of a Business Transaction to ensure state alignment of the respective parties.
The ebBP technical specification can be used to specify any shared collaboration. The specification may be effectively used with the other specifications in the ebXML framework, and with other technologies, for example when Web Services software components are being specified to execute Business Collaborations. Or, the ebBP business semantics and syntax are well-suited to enable definition of modular process building blocks that are combined in complex collaboration activities. The ebBP technical specification is also used to specify the business process related configuration parameters for configuring a software component to execute and monitor the collaborations.
A business process definition created using the semantics and syntax provided in the ebBP technical specification is referred to as an ebBP definition. ebBP definitions describe interoperable business processes that allow business partners, or collaborating parties, to cooperate and achieve a given business goal. It contains the specification of the Business Transaction, the choreography for using the Business Transaction(s) that comprise a Business Collaboration, and the Business Collaborations themselves. An ebBP definition is a machine computable and interpretable specification. The software component that manages these activities on behalf of a business partner is termed a Business Service Interface (BSI).
Business signals have a specific business purpose and are separate from lower protocol and transport signals. One or more Business Signals can be exchanged as part of a Business Transaction to ensure state alignment between both parties. Evaluation of business signals enable the state of a Business Collaboration to be explicitly calculated at run time. The ebBP technical specification provides both the structure and choreography of Business Signals, including allowing for user defined signals.
A Business Signal is computable. This provides the collaborating parties with a mutual understanding of the business activity. This function allows the parties to know if their expectations in a Business Transaction are realized. This is state alignment, and is important in order for the ebBP specification to have commercial viability. The ebBP specification provides the ability to conduct intended transactions if that is the intent of the collaborating parties.
A Business Collaboration is a set of roles interacting through a set of choreographed Business Transactions by exchanging Business Documents. A Business Collaboration is defined by the parties in the collaboration; it can be simple or complex, it can include expected and unexpected (but contingent) actions and the collaboration can allow for other than eBusiness options. The ebBP technical specification is used to specify the business process parameters to configure the Business Service Interface (BSI) needed to execute and to monitor the collaborations, including the capability to transition to human interactions or decisions that may be important to eBusiness activity, e.g. a phone call.
The ebBP technical specification provides the structure and semantics for ebBP process definitions. The goal of the ebBP technical specification is to provide the bridge between eBusiness process modeling and the execution of eBusiness software components.
All the parameters of the ebBP definition are intended to be specified at design time or, where applicable, acquired at deployment or runtime. This can be done by creating a business process and information model although modeling is optional. The ebBP definition expresses the expectations of the collaborating parties or business partners and provides the mechanisms to support state alignment. The ebBP technical specification provides the capability to leverage international business transaction patterns and the operational semantics that enable their use; and, well defined business signals to compute state alignment. The ebBP definition and a CPA may be used to configure a BSI.
The ebBP Versions 2.0.X includes normative documents, and non normative examples and artifacts to better inform users. The approved standard is Version 2.0.4. The documents and artifacts included are:
Normative
Non normative
ebBP v 2.0.4 has been approved as an OASIS Standard. The OASIS eBusiness Business Process Technical Committee plans to promote the ebBP to ISO 15000 status as soon as practical while encouraging and promoting adoption. Future collaboration with UN/CEFACT and Object Management Group (OMG) is anticipated.
Errata are included as non normative artifacts and found on the public web site: http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=ebxml-bp.
Yes, there is an open source editor, freebxmlbp, which was developed at Middle East Technical University (METU). The tool is under development with an initial user's guide recently circulated.
See ebXML deployments for more information.
Briefly and simply, ebBP is a short name, or alias, for the technical specification that realizes business collaboration, ebXML BPSS. They are one and the same. The objective is to define business processes in a standard way to allow interoperability between systems, organizations, business partners and collaborating parties. This will enable eBusiness. Labeling the latest and more substantive version ebBP focuses on the objective rather than the mechanism for achieving the objective which is the technical specification.
The ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement (CPPA) OASIS Standard (ISO 15000-1) defines how trading partners engage in electronic business collaborations through the exchange of electronic messages. The specification is advanced by the OASIS ebXML CPPA Technical Committee, a group that remains open to new participation.
Review answers to the frequently asked questions below on the ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement. Post new questions and additional comments at the FAQ Forum. See also: ebXML FAQ, ebBP FAQ, ebMS FAQ, and Registry FAQ.
The ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement OASIS Standard provides definitions for the sets of information used in business collaborations. One set of information (the Profile) contains data about the business partners' technical capabilities to engage in electronic business collaborations with other partners. The second set of information (the Agreement) contains data that has been agreed to configure the public, shared aspects of the protocols used in the business collaboration protocols. Version 2.0 of the specification is highly aligned with ebXML business process descriptions (ebBPSS) and the ebXML Messaging protocol (ebMS). Future versions will accommodate extensions that provide support for other business process notations and other business messaging protocols. A specification of the Negotiation protocol for Collaboration Protocol Agreements is nearing completion in 2003.
The maintenance and enhancement of this OASIS Standard should be of interest to ISVs seeking interoperable and standardized approaches to the configuration of heterogeneous yet interoperable software for enabling business collaboration. It should be of interest to end users concerned with automation of the management of configuration information over the lifetime of a business collaboration community. It should also be of interest to those seeking documented configurations suitable for monitoring compliance of collaborators' performance in areas such as data confidentiality, reliability, authentication, acknowledgment, and timely response.
This technology can benefit end users now in reducing the costs of initial collaboration setup and in the management of the lifecycle of the configuration information. Monitored agreements may also be of value in reducing costs of operation and in resolving service problems.
ebXML CPPA Versions 1.0 and 2.0 are complete. Version 2.0 is an approved OASIS Standard. An ebXML CPPA Negotiation specification is currently under development. A maintenance 2.1 version will fix several minor errors that have been detected and resolved and add enhanced extensibility points to the schema. Plans for a version 3.x will emerge as other ebXML specifications (ebXML Messaging and ebXML Business Process) move forward.
The ebXML Messaging Services (ebMS) OASIS Standard (ISO 15000-2) defines the transport, routing and packaging of e-business transactions using standard Internet technologies. The specification is advanced by the OASIS ebXML Messaging Services Technical Committee, a group that remains open to new participation.
ebMS describes a communication-protocol neutral method for exchanging electronic business
messages. It defines specific enveloping constructs supporting reliable, secure delivery of business information. The specification defines a flexible enveloping technique, permitting messages to contain payloads of any format type. This versatility ensures that legacy electronic business systems employing traditional syntaxes (i.e. UN/EDIFACT, ASC X12, or HL7) can leverage the advantages of the ebXML infrastructure along with users of emerging technologies.
The prime objective of ebMS is to facilitate the exchange of electronic business messages within an XML framework that leverages common Internet standards, without making any assumption on the integration and consumption model these messages will follow on the back end. These messages may be consumed in different ways that are out of scope of the specification: they may bind to a legacy application, to a service, be queued, enter a message workflow process, be expected by an already-running business process, be batched for delayed processing, be routed over an Enterprise Service Bus before reaching their consumer application, or be dispatched based on header data or payload data, etc.
The ebXML messaging framework is not a restrictive one: business messages, identified as the 'payloads' of ebXML messages, are not limited to XML documents. Traditional EDI formats may also be transported by ebMS. These payloads can take any digital form–XML, ASC X12, HL7, AIAG E5, database tables, binary image files, etc. Multiple payloads, possibly of different MIME types, can be transported in a single ebMS message. An objective of the ebXML Messaging protocol is to be capable of being carried over any available transfer protocol. The specification provides bindings to HTTP and SMTP, but other protocols to which SOAP may bind can also be used. The choice of an XML framework rather reflects confidence in a growing XML-based Web infrastructure and development tools infrastructure, the components of which can be leveraged and reused by developers.
For more information, see the OASIS ebXML Messaging Service Technical Committee homepage and TC Charter.
Review answers to the frequently asked questions below on the ebXML Messaging Services specification. Post new questions and additional comments at the FAQ Forum. See also: ebXML FAQ, ebBP FAQ, ebCPPA FAQ, and ebXML Registry FAQ.
It is becoming critical for broad adoption among all partners – large or small - of a supply-chain, to handle differences in message flow capacity, intermittent connectivity, lack of static IP addresses or firewall restrictions. Such new capabilities played an important role in the motivation that led to ebMS 3.0, along with the need to integrate and profile the emerging SOAP-based QoS-supporting standards. The message header profiling that provided, in ebMS 2.0, a standard business-level header, has also been extended to better address the diversity of back-end binding models, as well as the emerging trend in business activity monitoring, the eBusiness side of which a message handler should be able to support.
ebMS is being used around the world. See ebXML deployments for more information.
For more information, see the TC Charter and FAQ.
A podcast of an audio interviews related to ebXML are available in MP3 and OGG formats. Available podcasts include:
The version 3.0 standards and related materials are included in a ZIP file available for public download.
The ZIP file contains:
1. The OASIS ebXML Registry Information Model (RIM) Standard, v3.0, as "regrep-rim-3.0-os.pdf".
2. The OASIS ebXML Registry Services (RS) Standard, v3.0, as "regrep-rs-3.0-os.pdf".
3. Supporting files and documentation including:
These and additional documents can be viewed from the OASIS ebXML Registry Technical Committee homepage under the documents link.
The OASIS ebXML Registry TC held an open webinar event on September 15, 2005 to help developers understand more about how ebXML Registry enables secure, federated information management within and across enterprises. The presentation included an overview of ebXML Registry v3.0 key features, and details on production implementations. A Q&A session with members of the OASIS ebXML Registry TC was included in the event. The presentation materials are available for download OASIS ebXML Registry Webinar
Review answers to the frequently asked questions below on the ebXML Registry and Repository specifications. Post new questions and additional comments at the FAQ Forum. See also: ebXML FAQ, ebBP FAQ, ebCPPA FAQ, and ebMS FAQ.
An XML registry is an information system that stores XML artifacts (e.g., XML schemas, data elements, etc.) and non-XML artifacts (e.g. supporting documents), as well as details (metadata) about the artifacts. The storage facility (e.g., a filesystem or database) that holds registered objects is known as a repository, while the part of the information system that maintains the metadata for the registered objects is known as a registry.
The benefits of an XML Registry are numerous and include:
ebXML Registry standards are being used around the world. See ebXML deployments for more information.
ebXML began in the fall of 1999 as effort by UN/CEFACT and OASIS to initiate a worldwide project to enable the consistent use of XML for the exchange of all electronic business data.
The ebXML Initiative was an 18-month endeavor in which industry groups, standards bodies, vendors, consultants and users from virtually every continent on the globe participated. In May 2001, ebXML met its deadline by delivering a suite of specifications, white papers and other related documents.
This ebXML Initiative Archive contains: