[Taking stock] Where to next? - It's not the traction, nor supporting two stacks, nor any of this!

["David RR Webber \(XML\)" <david@drrw.info>]

Roger, 

Excellent rational thinking here - "I also see the wisdom of the Danish
government (as with most large enterprises) optimizing for a consistent
internal SOA architecture ". 

I must confess I get too close to the technology alignment details
sometimes to step back and see the bigger picture (you think?!?). 

<snip> "For this whole debate though (and not so much me personally) -
did I understand Christian to say that the Danish government would be
building (or funding) an ebXML gateway to your WS-* infrastructure? 
And if so, when?  Those seem to me to be the only important question
here from an end user perspective." </snip>

I agree that just knowing the answer to three related simple questions
would help immensely here: 

1) What planning is there around releasing ebMS gateway support to
supplement the RASP toolkit? 

2) Are there plans to release the architecture documentation - to aid
understanding of the whole? 

3) Can we see some implementation documentation (essentially
"implementers convention" - IC - for Danish use of UBL transactions?  

That would all really help potential service providers get a jump start
on providing services and solutions around what Denmark has already
announced here. 

Thanks, DW

"The way to be is to do" - Confucius (551-472 B.C.)
 

 -------- Original Message --------

Mikkel,

thank you for your, and Christian's, very sensible presentation of the
thinking here.  It makes perfect sense to me - and I say that speaking
as someone who very much has SME needs and interests at heart. I think
there is a way to reconcile the different views here, and perhaps take
some of the heat out of this.

From a business perspective, as you're saying, what creates value is
interoperability - not standardization per se.  Standardization is a
means to an end - broadening interoperability and reducing its cost.
It's not, in my view (though some here may consider this heresy), an
end in its own right.

In the end, I think that standards that are lighter-weight, and
interoperable at Internet-scale will win out - and that may not be WS-*
at least in its present form.  But we're not at "the end", we're at the
beginning - and interoperability between large classes of deployed
technology (such as Microsoft WCF and Sandesha) creates significant
value.

I also see the wisdom of the Danish government (as with most large
enterprises) optimizing for a consistent internal SOA architecture -
which as one requirement, is exposed to the outside world.  Also, as
with most large enterprises, this is not surprisingly based on the
stack by the major vendors to large enterprises, namely WS-*  From my
perspective, delivering interoperability with the systems large
enterprises use is a (perhaps the) key to delivering value to SMEs -
and as such, I'm very pleased to hear about you holding Microsoft
accountable for Sandesha interoperability.

However, as we continue scaling up, I expect two things to happen. 
First, we will find other communities (probably including some that are
ebXML-based), and will build connections there too for our customers. 
But secondly, we will continue developing our *single stack* of
internal technologies, to manage the scaling issues across increasingly
large numbers of trading partners, with heterogeneous protocols, formats
etc.  Since that will be internal, basing this on standards will not
initially be a primary goal.  But over time, I expect it will make
sense, even though I'd expect our technologists to make those
decisions, not me.  And I'd expect that set of technologies to be based
on simple, lightweight standards - quite possibly more like the ebXML
stack than WS-*.

So, for me personally, that's why I'm glad ebXML exists, and expect to
do more there at some point.  And as you say, I think the business
needs will lead to the creation of gateways.

For this whole debate though (and not so much me personally) - did I
understand Christian to say that the Danish government would be
building (or funding) an ebXML gateway to your WS-* infrastructure? 
And if so, when?  Those seem to me to be the only important question
here from an end user perspective.

Regards,
Roger


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