System Architecture with XML
This guide comprehensively combines XML, the Internet, equalling Web services, which provide a great deal of strategic applications for your business.
TABLE OF CONTENTS System Architecture with XML
Chapter 10: Infrastructure
Overview
Web services has been the latest catch phrase out of the marketing departments of the IT industry. Despite the hype, Web services are important building blocks for Internet applications. Architectures such as Hewlett-Packard s e-speak, Sun Microsystem s ONE, Microsoft s .NET, or ebXML all rely on Web services. In Section 10.2, we take a closer look at this technology.
In Section 10.3, we move the discussion to ebXML. This standard, authored by UN/CEFACT and OASIS and adopted by major industry associations such as OTA or Covisint, combines the experience of the EDI community with the flexibility of XML. This leads to new and innovative solutions, such as the negotiation of shared business processes or the treatment of context, from which we can learn a lot. It will be interesting comparing ebXML with BizTalk, which is discussed in Chapter 11.
Finally, we list some of the most important XML industry vocabularies, such as SyncML, DocBook, FpML, HL7, and many more.
10.1 Business Requirements
Business-to-business communication requires infrastructure and intermediaries. Intermediaries like marketplaces, exchanges, auctions, and so on provide transparency in an otherwise chaotic world. Just as in the real world, where markets, real estate agents, and other intermediaries provide transparency, Internet B2B intermediaries provide transparency regarding price, product features, availability, and supplier characteristics (Anant and Pandya 2001).
Intermediaries
In the current stage of the Internet such intermediaries take the form of online exchanges, markets, portals, auctions, reverse auctions, and so on. They simply bring buyer and supplier together and assist in the process...
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