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.