ebXML Registry "Granularity"

["Chiusano Joseph" <chiusano_joseph@bah.com>]

Team,

This week I participated in a series of federal XML meetings in which
the OASIS/ebXML Registry standard was mentioned as a candidate for
various potential roles within multiple federal government initiatives.

That's great news.

In most if not all of these references, there is a *very strongly*
expressed requirement for granular registration - that is, registration
of elements, attributes, and datatypes - as well as XML namespace
support. There has been a very big push within the federal government in
the past several years for component-based architectures, both from a
software module standpoint as well as a data standpoint.

I know that if an implementer chose to, they could include such
functionality in their ebXML Registry product, given the abstract nature
of our information model. But the reality is that people read our
specifications and they don't explicitly glean from the specs that the
ebXML Registry standard can accomodate granular registration and
maintenance - so they close the specs and potentially move on to other
possible solutions (solutions which do exist in the federal space and do
allow such granular registration and maintenance, as well as namespace
support).

That's not-so-great news.

What I would like to propose is that, in no greater than 3 months, we
make a big technical and marketing push to educate the world as to the
potential of granular registration and maintenance for an ebXML
Registry. I think a great first step would be the creation of a series
of Technical Notes that address (1) how to register and maintain
elements, attributes and datatypes in an ebXML Registry and (2) how to
register and maintain namespaces, and associate elements, attributes,
and datatypes with their namespaces.

Then, we can combine this capability with CAM, and allow registry users
to assemble schemas using registered artifacts such as namespaces,
elements, attributes, and datatypes.

Is anyone with me on this challenge?

Kind Regards,
Joe
begin:vcard 
n:Chiusano;Joseph
tel;work:(703) 902-6923
x-mozilla-html:FALSE
url:www.bah.com
org:Booz | Allen | Hamilton;IT Digital Strategies Team
adr:;;8283 Greensboro Drive;McLean;VA;22012;
version:2.1
email;internet:chiusano_joseph@bah.com
title:Senior Consultant
fn:Joseph M. Chiusano
end:vcard