RE: [ubl-dev] ebXML approval retrospective

[Fulton Wilcox <fulton.wilcox@coltsnecksolutions.com>]

Fraser,

From a five-year retrospective viewpoint, I think it is accurate to say that
SOA/SOAP has greatly underperformed both "expectations" and, more
importantly, its practical potential. If you scanned a large company's
environment and relationships to identify where SOA/SOAP would be better
than what is being used (often not a high hurdle because what is being used
is still fax, phone calls, etc), my guess is that the glass is about 2%
full, even if you toss in variants like REST and pure push such as RSS.

Whereas ebXML has tended to be overlooked, SOA/Soap has been smothered in
"marketing love." The resulting cloud of FUD and positioning messages from
both leading edge and trailing edge suppliers and consultants, and some IT
quarreling over, say, differences in numeric precision, cost two or three
years out of the past five.

Besides SOA and ebXML, one can also consider the languishing state of
Business Process Management (BPM), which tends to be stuck in corporate
niches and pilots, and, a further indignity, has had its three letter
acronym hijacked by the "business performance measurement" crowd. The
underwhelming adoption of BPM makes it somewhere between rare and
infinitesimally unlikely that even a medium sized corporation has
implemented an effective trans-functional, widely used workflow process, and
that of streamlined workflow helps retard the ROI and adoption of
inter-enterprise solutions.

Given the synergies among SOA, ebXML and BPM, lags in adoption tend to be
mutually reinforcing. Indeed, if one looks at the IT landscape, the number
of deserving, but languishing IT advances resembles the air traffic pattern
at a major airport during dark and stormy weather - backed up for 500
kilometers.

Out in the great world beyond IT standards or even IT folk, we are competing
with the delaying tactics perfected by that military genius, General
Inertia. The General tends to be quite content with offerings of yesteryear
and can employ divide and conquer techniques to hold off the newbies for
decades.

Where all this becomes a worry is when, for example, we try to streamline
the services economy, notably healthcare, because General Inertia stands in
the way and, quite accurately, points out the migration costs of moving
ahead.


						Regards,

						Fulton Wilcox
						Colts Neck Solutions LLC




-----Original Message-----
From: Fraser Goffin [mailto:goffinf@googlemail.com] 
Sent: Saturday, May 13, 2006 1:23 PM
To: fulton.wilcox@coltsnecksolutions.com
Cc: ubl-dev@lists.oasis-open.org; xml-dev@lists.xml.org
Subject: Re: [ubl-dev] ebXML approval retrospective

> In the same context, SOA/SOAP model is moving ahead none too rapidly
either,
> with most successes being "intramural."

I disagree. The pace of adoption for SOA/SOAP integration for B2B
varies. In my own case it is the *primary* model not, as many suggest
one which only follows successful internal integration exercises
(indeed many are less enthuiastic about using SOA/SOAP internally
where all parts of the solution are available to implementers).

As far as the challenges of versioning and extensibility are
concerned, I agree whole-heartedly. Working with a standards body not
dis-similar to UBL (for UK General Insurance Standards), there are
identical problems and, not many easy / obvious solutions. This is why
I (amongst many) having been staying close to the various approaches
that UBL are considering (genericode, nvdl, etc.).

Some time ago, I took my organisation down the ebXML route for one
particular project (at least the the MS specification) but as others
may have found the support in terms of off the shelf implementations
was not there and there was (is) enormous pressure to use WS-*. I have
long been a supporter of ebXML, but I remain to be convinced that it
will eventually gain sufficient market traction. Yes some (perhaps
even many) of the mainstream players have support for some of the
specifications, but under challenge many of these prove to be somewhat
incomplete and sometimes a bit superficial. I am pleased though that
this effort continues. Many of the ideas that have been adopted by
other specs have their roots in ebXML so in that regard, it *is* a
success story.

Fraser.

On 12/05/06, Fulton Wilcox <fulton.wilcox@coltsnecksolutions.com> wrote:
> Dave,
>
> The dismal evaluation I presume relates to Klaus's definition of success -
> to quote from Klaus's blog, that the ebXML standards would enable
"...anyone
> out of the blue to engage with anyone else anywhere else."
>
> The glass is about 1% full in meeting that expectation with
> machine-to-machine dialogs.
>
> In the same context, SOA/SOAP model is moving ahead none too rapidly
either,
> with most successes being "intramural."
>
> The currently ongoing debates concerning UBL schema content constraints
are
> symptomatic of the fundamental forces of complexity and "particularity"
that
> must be accommodated before that glass gets very full.
>
>
>                                                Fulton Wilcox
>                                                Colts Neck Solutions LLC
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: David RR Webber (XML) [mailto:david@drrw.info]
> Sent: Thursday, May 11, 2006 5:32 PM
> To: Bill Chessman
> Cc: ubl-dev@lists.oasis-open.org; EDI-L@yahoogroups.com; Klaus-Dieter
Naujok
> Subject: RE: [ubl-dev] ebXML approval retrospective
>
> Bill,
>
> I've just taken a few moments here to read Klaus's piece.
>
> Wow - even by Klaus's standards this is a dismal and self-deprecating
> attack.
>
> I'm here to tell everyone that the world of ebXML is nowhere near as
> forgotten and
> doomed as Klaus would have you think - and that Klaus really is down on
> himself
> when he should be reading more of the items on
> http://ebxmlforum.net/5-years/
> and taking some credit for positive outcomes!
>
> Afterall noone ever said this was going to be easy!!
>
> I'd take issue with many of Klaus's assertions and his outlook.
>
> 1) Turns out the big players DO have current ebXML support in their
> products, Oracle, IBM ,Sun, BEA, SAP, Fujitsu, Sysbase, etc will all
> sell you their solutions with ebXML support in them.  And Oracles' is
> brand new - their iHub support for ebXML was released at end of 2005
> (and its very good BTW as I've seen it close up).
>
> 2) He forgets that ebXML B2B remains the ONLY certified XML
> interoperable solution out there - with more than a dozen vendors
> completing the interoperability suite.
>
> 3) There are industries that have standardized on ebXML - PIDX
> (agro-chemical), HL7 healthcare, electrical power - and we see the
> auto-industry also garnering the benefits of using ebMS too and growing
> its use.
>
> 4) There are large scale deployments - the whole of Norway is using
> ebXML for healthcare insurance, and the NHS in UK is using it for
> supplychain support.  So OK - in Klaus's self-deprecating stance -
> these are just tiny little countries on the fringe of Europe that noone
> pays much mind to.
>
> 5) Governments really do appreciate the value of open public standards
> and open public implementations.  While ebXML may not have gone in the
> direction Klaus wanted for it - nevertheless it is healthy and primed
> to be an important part of where the internet and eBusiness is going -
> driven by the open source and open services revolution.
>
> 6) ebXML registry for secure document storage (aka IHE/XDS) is about to
> be THE solution - and ditto for ebXML Regsitry and semantic content
> retrieval.  There is some serious momentum and sophisticated community
> building behind this - and yes - this is exactly the sort of thing we
> wanted registry to drive.
>
> 7) The new OASIS BPSS work is ground breaking - and OASIS just approved
> the BCM work - that is founded
>    from the original ebXML / CEFACT UMM concepts.  The ebXML solution
> stack is changing the way people
>    approach engineering their solutions - and yes - this does take time
> to seep into the IT conciousness.
>
> Klaus - come on man - GIVE ME A BREAK!  Just because noone is having a
> huge party and lotsa Hollywood style bruhah does not mean you can sit
> at your computer terminal and wail into your weak thin American beer,
> or cheap Californian wine and depress us all!  Just because ebXML did
> not do everything you thought it should you cannot ignore what your
> child has achieved!  I feel like the prodigal son here - and Dad just
> does not want to entertain anything good could have come of his
> offspring once he left home and went off on his own.
>
> This is the new wave internet community world and we know better.  Grass
> roots is more important than Redmondian brash PR.
>
> Get on board the new ebXML and enjoy!  We have an awful lot to be proud
> of and much to thank you for - so quick raining on your own parade -
> I'm not going to join you in wanting to suck on lemons when I can eat
> cake and pizza and drink great English beer!!
>
> The best of ebXML is yet to come and we can be very proud of what we
> have already accomplished and the foundations we have created...
>
> Remember when everyone trashed Apple as a crippled and broken spear and
> Klaus was the only guy we knew who had an Apple Mac?!?
>
> Cheers, DW
>
>  -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [ubl-dev] ebXML approval retrospective
> From: "Bill Chessman" <bill.chessman@inovis.com>
> Date: Thu, May 11, 2006 1:01 pm
> To: <ubl-dev@lists.oasis-open.org>, <EDI-L@yahoogroups.com>
>
> All,
>
>
>
> Anybody else notice that today, May 11, 2006, is the 5th anniversary of
> the approval of the original ebXML project?  I see that the chairman of
> the original project (Klaus-Dieter Naujok) has put up some retrospective
> commentaries on his blog page at
> http://www.klauskorner.com/MyBlog/MyBlog.html.  For those nostalgic
> folks that participated, there's even a video from that closing approval
> meeting.
>
>
>
> Still wondering where the story goes from here...
>
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Bill Chessman
>
> Inovis(tm)
>
>
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