A Declarative Approach to Electronic Business

Ching-Long Yeh

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Tatung University

Taipei 104

Taiwanchingyeh@cse.ttu.edu.tw

http://www.cse.ttu.edu.tw/chingyeh

A Declarative to EB 2

Abstract

• EB standards provide the neutral basis of

interoperability between trading partner

• Moving from procedural approach to declarative

approach

• Representation of EB standards using the ontology

technique

• Declarative approach to EB implementation

Electronic Commerce

• Evolution of electronic commerce– B2C, human-to-machine, online catalogue service– B2B, AP-to-AP,

• EB standards– RosettaNet、 ebXML、 BizTalk。

Transport, routing, packaging

Business processes,business documents

Company A Company B

Transport, routing, packaging

Business processes,business documents

Backend APBackend AP

A Declarative to EB 4

General EB Architecture

• EB standard architecture is divided into – Upper level: Standard business

processes and document– Lower level: Services for message

transport, routing and packaging

• Popular standards– Horizontal integration: ebXML– Vertical integration: RosettaNet (Information Technology,

Electronic Component and Semiconductor Manufacturing)– Messaging service: BizTalk Framework

Transport, routing, packaging

Business processes,business documents

A Declarative to EB 5

ebXML Technical Architecture

1. Obtain ebXMLspec

2. Build and deployebXML applications

3. Prepare andpublish CPP

4. Discover A'sprofile

5. Would like toengage in businesscenarioi usingebXML and forman agreement(CPA)

ebXMLregistry

Com

pany

A

Com

pany

B

6. Do business according to the content of CPA

A Declarative to EB 6

ebXML Infrastructure

• EB infrastructure consists of

1. Trading partner’s information

• Collaboration Protocol Profile (CPP) and Collaboration Protocol Agreement (CPA）

2. Business process and information meta model

• Business Process Schema Specification

3. Core component and core library functionality

4. Registry functionality

5. Messaging service functionality

Common BP andvocabulary

A Declarative to EB 7

CPP Structure<CollaborationProtocolProfile

xmlns="http://www.ebxml.org/namespaces/tradePartner"xmlns:ds="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#"xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"version="1.1">

<PartyInfo> <!--one or more--> ... </PartyInfo> <Packaging id="ID"> <!--one or more--> ... <Packaging> <ds:Signature> <!--zero or one--> ... </ds:Signature> <Comment>text</Comment> <!--zero or more--> </CollaborationProtocolProfile>

A Declarative to EB 8

CPA Structure<CollaborationProtocolAgreement

xmlns="http://www.ebxml.org/namespaces/tradePartner" xmlns:bpm="http://www.ebxml.org/namespaces/businessProcess"

xmlns:ds = "http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#"xmlns:xlink = "http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"

cpaid="YoursAndMyCPA" version="1.2"> <Status value = "proposed"/> <Start>1988-04-07T18:39:09</Start> <End>1990-04-07T18:40:00</End> <!--ConversationConstraints MAY appear 0 or 1 times--> <ConversationConstraints invocationLimit = "100" concurrentConversations = "4"/> <PartyInfo> … </PartyInfo> <PartyInfo> … </PartyInfo> <Packaging id="N20"> <!--one or more-->

… </Packaging> <ds:Signature>any combination of text and elements </ds:Signature> <Comment xml:lang="en-gb">any text</Comment> <!--zero or more--></CollaborationProtocolAgreement>

1. Any Party may register its CPPs to an ebXML Registry.

2. Party B discovers trading partner A (Seller) by searching in the Registry and downloads CPP(A) to Party B’s server.

3. Party B creates CPA(A,B) and sends CPA(A,B) to Party A.

4. Parties A and B negotiate and store identical copies of the completed CPA as a document in both servers. This process is done manually or automatically.

5. Parties A and B configure their run-time systems with the information in the CPA.

6. Parties A and B do business under the new CPA.

CPP(A)CPP(B)

CPP(X)CPP(Y)CPP(Z)

1.

1.CPA(A,B)

CPA(A,B)

(Document)(Exec. codet)

CPA(A,B)

CPA(A,B)(Document)(Exec. codet)

2.3.4.

5.

5.

6.

Party A(Seller, Server)

Party B(Buyer, Server)

Registry

Working Architecture of CPP/CPA

A Declarative to EB 10

Business Process SchemaConcept

A Declarative to EB 11

Business Process Schema in XML

A Declarative to EB 12

Procedural Approach to EB

• Specifications– Not machine-readable– Need human interpretation

• Lack of partner discovery mechanism (registry, CPP, CPA)

• Example: RosettaNet

A Declarative to EB 13

Declarative Approach to EB

• Specifications– Machine-readable (Business Process, Document, and

Vocabulary in either UML or XML)– Enabling automatic code generation

• Partner discovery mechanism (registry, CPP, CPA)• Example: ebXML

A Declarative to EB 14

Forming CPA by Automatic Negotiation

Packaging

Transport

Role

Packaging

Transport

Role

matches

matches

matches

Basic tasks of forming CPA

Rule-based Formation of CPA

Ontology(BPS, BD, CC)

BPS: Business Process SchemaBD: Business DocumentCC: Core Components

InferenceEngine

Rule Base

RDF triplesstore

Prolog rules

WebServer

Input: CPP1,CPP2

Result: CPA or difference

A Declarative to EB 16

Two-Layer Agent-Mediated EB Architecture

• We propose a two-layer agent-mediated EB architecture, where– The Upper Layer consists of agents that play the role of

Business Collaboration and Choreography in ebXML,– The Lower Layer consists of agents each of which

accomplishes a basic Business Transaction in ebXML.

F

BT

FTP, SMTP, HTTP

F

FTP, SMTP, HTTP

F Facilitator

BC BC

BC

BC

BusnessCollaborationAgent

BC

TP TP TP

UpperLayer

LowerLayer

BT

BT

BT

BTBusinessTransactionAgent

BT

BTBT

BT

TP TradingPartner

Interactions between BT Agents

BT BT

RequestingAgent

RespondingAgent

Request Document

Response Document

Receipt Ack Signal

Accept Ack Signal

Receipt Ack Signal

Interactions between BC Agents

RequestingAgent

RespondingAgent

Request Document

Response Document

Receipt Ack Signal

Accept Ack Signal

Receipt Ack Signal

RequestingAgent

RespondingAgent

Request Document

Response Document

Receipt Ack Signal

Accept Ack Signal

Receipt Ack Signal

RequestingAgent

RespondingAgent

Request Document

Response Document

Receipt Ack Signal

Accept Ack Signal

Receipt Ack Signal

RequestingAgent

RespondingAgent

Request Document

Response Document

Receipt Ack Signal

Accept Ack Signal

Receipt Ack Signal

BC BC

Generation of Execution Code from CPA

InferenceEngine

Rule Base

CPABC Agent Code

BT Agent Code

A Declarative to EB 21

Implementation

A Declarative to EB 22

Conclusions

• EB standards are moving towards declarative approach.

• We propose a declarative approach to EB implementation– Ontology– Rule-based– Generation of execution codes from specification documents