Business Informatics Group Institute of Software Technology and Interactive Systems Vienna University of Technology Favoritenstraße 9-11/188-3, 1040 Vienna, Austria phone: +43 (1) (secretary), fax: +43 (1) Q4: Standard Development Approaches UN/CEFACT Standard Development Advisory Team Conference Call, 20th January 2010 Christian Huemer & Philipp Liegl

ebXML is gone … but which ideas are still valid? … where enterprises of any size, anywhere can:  find each other electronically  conduct business through the exchange of XML based messages  according to standard business processes  using standard message structures  with clear business semantics  according to agreed trading partner agreements  using off the shelf purchased business applications commercial off-the-shelf software (COTS)

Data Centric Approaches 3 Bottom-up business document standards Top-down business document standards Subset A Generic standard Business Domain A Business Domain B A B Subset B Subset C union Exten- sion A Core standard Exten- sion B Business Domain A Business Domain B A B Core standard inter- section

Hybrid Approaches 4 Top-Down: but hooks for (arbitrary) extensions Generic Standard Business Domain A Business Domain B A B Union + Extension Exten- sion X Generic Standard Exten- sion Y Generic Core standard Generic Business Domain A Business Domain B A B Core Standard inter- section Generic Standard

Hybrid Approaches 5 ? Subset A Generic (Requ A) Core standard Generic (Requ B) Generic (Requ A) Core standard ?

Registry 6 UN/CEFACT CIDXAutomotiveSWIFT Swiss Bank Assocation Austrian Bank Assocation ODETTEAIAGBayerBASF CC BIE? BIE BIE of BIE Or Rules on BIE

Process oriented approach 7  Which process are we talking about?  A process to be followed in the standardization  No, this is referred to as a method(ology)  The processes triggered in a company when a document arrives  No, orchestrations are not subject to standardization  The interactions between business partners  Yes, we do care about choreographies

B2B Application Computing Messaging Layer Document Layer Business Layer B2B Application Server Messaging Layer Document Layer Business Layer B2B Application Server SOAP request over HTTP, SMTP,... Common Process Logic DatabasesERP Systems … Persistence Layer Common Document Logic DatabasesERP Systems … Persistence Layer 8 Is it CEFACT´s job? A Methodology? Building Blocks for processes? Standard Processes? Customization of Standard Processes Reference Processes?

The original UMM idea – realistic? 9  Subject of standardization is an inter-organizational business process, it is defined by a business collaboration protocol  A business collaboration protocol consists of many business transactions. A business transaction exchanges one or two business documents.  A business transaction and its document exchanges are not developed in isolation, but always in the context of the business collaboration protocol  It follows, that there may be different documents of the same type when used in different business collaboration protocols

The CEFACT delivers only a process methodology approach 10  CEFACT defines business documents only  However, CEFACT suggests the UMM to specify a choreography of document exchanges  The definition of these choreographies is up to  Industry consortia (?)  Supply chain leaders (?)  Software vendors (?)  Individual companies – market leaders (?)  … or whoever wants to do the job ;-)  Question: Should the choreographies be contained in the registry at the 2 nd and 3 rd level?

Conservative: The CEFACT delivers business transactions 11  CEFACT still concentrates on business documents  Each business document results in a one way business transaction  Alternative: some business documents are grouped into two way business transactions (e.g. request for quote and quote)  CEFACT suggests UMM to specify a choreography amongst business transactions  The definition of these choreographies is still up to  Industry consortia (?)  Supply chain leaders (?)  Software vendors (?)  Individual companies – market leaders (?)  … or whoever wants to do the job ;-)  Question remains : Should the choreographies be contained in the registry at the 2 nd and 3 rd level?

Advanced: The CEFACT delivers reference models 12  CEFACT still concentrates on business documents  Each business document results in a one way business transaction  Alternative: some business documents are grouped into two way business transactions (e.g. request for quote and quote)  Additionally, CEFACT delivers reference models proposing a business collaboration protocol - i.e. a choreography amongst the business transactions  The customization of these choreographies is still up to  Industry consortia (?)  Supply chain leaders (?)  Software vendors (?)  Individual companies – market leaders (?)  … or whoever wants to do the job ;-)  Question remains : Should the choreographies be contained in the registry at the 2 nd and 3 rd level?

Visionary: The Business Entity State Centric Approach 13  A business collaboration is about changing states of one or more business entities  An exchange is about synchronizing the states of one (or more) business entities  The exchange is limited to the information required to change the state of a business entity (or all business entities that are changed)  A business entity is a data model comprising several classes (CCs / BIEs)  A data model for a business collaboration is the union of the data models of the considered business entities  An exchange specifies a view into the data model of the business collaboration. This view comprises all the data necessary to perform a state change.