RE: [regrep] Meeting agenda and reminder for ebXML Registry telecon December 18th, 2003

["Collins, Jeff" <jcollins@vignette.com>]

Ok, so i guess i'll follow up with a few more questions:

- What industry vendors have agreed to support this spec so far?
- Has there been any consideration of Portal Server integration use cases with the CM API?
- What would a CM vendor use ebXML for today if it doesn't support versioning as defined by the CM products on the market today?  Would it be read only?
- How does ebXML interoperate with WebDAV? 

Overall, are there plans for reference ECM applications?  Plans for application support or integration from Portal Vendors or Apache in something like Cocoon?  How would a vendor achieve benefit from committing resources to this specification?

jeff

-----Original Message-----
From: Farrukh Najmi [mailto:Farrukh.Najmi@Sun.COM]
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 1:51 PM
To: Collins, Jeff
Cc: ebXML Regrep (ebXML Regrep)
Subject: Re: [regrep] Meeting agenda and reminder for ebXML Registry
telecon December 18th, 2003


Thanks for the thought provoking questions Jeff.

I will speak for myself below... Other TC members please share your 
thoughts.

Collins, Jeff wrote:

>I guess I would ask the question, how seriously does the ebXML spec wish to tackle the ECM space as an interop standard API?  
>
Very seriously. Today, with version 2.5, I consider it the defining 
aspect of our specification.

Since the earliest humble beginnings of this work I felt that we were 
defining a standard for managing arbitrary content described by 
standardized metadata. There was great push then from some to focus only 
of things *ebXML* such as CPP/A, BPSS, CC etc. but we resisted those 
pressures and kept a generic, content agnostic specification.

It is my sincere hope that, in version 4, we fill critical missing ECM 
functions such as complete versioning support and evolve to support 
Semantic Content Management. This would take us to the next level of ECM 
where meaning is associated with the content and metadata describing the 
content. Inference is supported during discovery of content.

I hope that a year from now I will be able to say:

"ebXML Registry is to the Semantic Web what Web Servers were to the Web"

In this view, ebXML Registry is the Semantic Web Server in a future 
world of the Semantic Web and Semantic Web Services.

>Is that an important goal?  
>
Very.

>If so, why?  
>
ECM is vitally important to every enterprise. ECM to date has focused on 
intra-enterprise CM. In an increasing connected "Business Web Services" 
world, the trend is shifting towards the intra-enterprise CM. Content  
like superman can see through walls and leap over tall buildings as long 
as there is adequate Access Control and Security checks in place.

Many medium and large companies (mine included) have several ECM 
products within their various departments. Each product may be stellar 
in its own niche but none interoperates with another. This creates silos 
of information that leads to lost productivity and creates barriers to 
seamless communication. This is counter to the "Business Web Services" 
revolution.

These current interoperabilty limitations among ECM products is 
unsustainable in the long term and customers will soon be demanding that 
the issue is addressed via standards.

>And what specific business problem(s) have you identified or tried to tackle in this arena?  
>
The business problem can be summed up with following examples:

-Different departments within a large entity such as a government 
cannot  share content easily unless they standardize on the same ECM 
product used across the enterprise.

-When two business merge  they bring different ECM systems that do not 
allow them to integrate their content. A classic and routine example is 
when hospitals merge to become one enterprise.

-Assymetrical B2B relationships: A large enterprise such as Wallmart  or 
GM  wishes to integrate  their suppliers more tightly and securely 
directly into their ECM systems. This is made difficult due to lack of 
standards.

-Symetrical B2B relationships: Business partners have a need to share  
content in a secure mananer with peer businesses that they partner with. 
Integration of their ECMs and workflow across them is needed.

-Existing B2B solutions are either Client/Server (e.g. SOAP) or P2P 
(e.g. ebXML Messaging). There are no good many-to-many business 
collaboration standards available yet. With standardized CM across 
multiple business and Publish/Subscribe content-based event notification 
based workflow i can see a many-to-many business collaboration. An 
example scenario is one of Auctions.

>Have these been documented and discussed in detail?
>
I have not come across this problem being documented anywhere yet. It is 
based upon my experience and anecdotal evidence from users and customers.

-- 
Regards,
Farrukh

Content Enable your enterprise with the freebXML Registry:

http://ebxmlrr.sourceforge.net/presentations/freebXMLRegistryBrochure.pdf
http://ebxmlrr.sourceforge.net
--