Overview

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What is ebXML Registry-Repository

To use a familiar analogy, the ebXML Registry-Repository is to digital content, what your local library is to books and other published content.


The Library Analogy
Your Local Library ebXML Registry-Repository
Manages books and all types of published material Manages all types of digital content
Has book shelves containing books and other published material Has a "repository" containing all types of digital content
Has a card catalog that describes the published material that is available in the book shelves Has a "registry" that describes the digital content that is available in the repository
Multiple libraries can voluntarily participate in a cooperative network and offer a unified service Multiple ebXML Registry-Repository's can voluntarily participate in a cooperative network and offer a unified service


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The Role of the Repository

The repository is analogous to the book shelves in the library and contains the digital content.

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The Role of the Registry

The registry is analogous to the library card catalog and maintains descriptive information (called "metadata") about the digital content in the repository. The metadata enables digital content to be easily identified, named, described, categorized and related to each other in a consistent and standard manner.

A main purpose of the registry is to help rapidly locate digital content by searching the available metadata.

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Important Features

The ebXML Registry-Repository manages its digital content from cradle to grave. This requires many useful features. Here is a brief description of some of these features:

  • When digital content is published, it can automatically be checked for compliance with established policies to ensure quality and consistency.
    • This is analogous to a book being automatically checked for conformance with library and local policies before being accepted into a library.
  • When digital content is published, it can automatically be processed in order generate metadata that can facilitate later discovery.
    • This is analogous to a card catalog automatically being created when a book is added to a library.
  • Discovery services that can allow different search parameters for different types of digital content.
    • This is analogous to a library being able to tailor their card catalog for different types of publications they carry (Books, Magazines, Video, Microfiche etc.)
  • Notification services that can notify interested parties that have expressed interest in specific types of events involving specific types of digital content.
    • This is analogous to a library automatically notifying a member when a book they wish to borrow has been purchased or otherwise become available for pickup.
  • Security services such as authentication, authorization, single sign-on and keeping an audit trail of significant events.
    • This is analogous to a library automatically issuing memberships and library cards to new members, automatically checking membership on entry and automatically authorizing the borrowing of a book by a member and making a permanent record of such transactions automatically.
  • Federation features that allow multiple, registries to link together seamlessly and appear as a single logical registry while maintaining local autonomy and security.
    • This is analogous to a library allowing its card catalog entries to be linked with the card catalog entries of any other participating library in its network and also allowing a search to be performed across all libraries in its network in a seamless manner.
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Uses of ebXML Registry-Repository

The ebXML Registry is fairly general purpose. This means that it can have a variety of uses.

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When to Use an ebXML Registry-Repository

The following situations are a good fit for using ebXML Registry-Repository:

  • Need to manage a lot of of digital content
  • Need to manage a lot of intricate metadata describing digital content
  • Need rapid discovery of digital content based upon structured search criteria and context
  • Need to link content using any type of relationships
  • Need to navigate to related content once the content of your desire has been found
  • Need to deliver notification of changes to interested people and automated processes
  • Need sophisticated control over access to digital content
  • Need ability to securely link information across organizational and jurisdictional boundaries
  • Need to securely search for information across organizational and jurisdictional boundaries
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Why Not Just Use a Database?

There are similarities between ebXML Registry-Repository and databases. In fact, an analogy used sometimes to describe ebXML Registry-Repository is: 

ebXML Registry-Repository is to Web Services what databases are to enterprise application.
ebXML Registry-Repository is the database for Web Services.

Here are some reasons why ebXML Registry-Repository may be a better choice when you need many of the charatcteristics highlighted in #When_to_Use_an_ebXML_Registry-Repository.

Why Not Just Use a Database
Standard Feature Database ebXML Registry-Repository
Designed for digital content Designed for tables. Blobs are inadeqaute Yes
Support for standard metadata No Yes
Metadata based discovery No Yes
Automatic content validation No Yes
Automatic content cataloging No Yes
Standard protocols for subscription and notification No Yes
Fine-grained role-based access control No Yes
Securely link information across organizational and jurisdictional boundaries No Yes
Securely search for information across organizational and jurisdictional boundaries No Yes
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Some Real World Examples

Although there is no single example that will illustrate the breadth and diversity of potential use cases, here are some real world examples.

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Collaborative Authoring: An Illustrative Use Case

The following is a hypothetical use case that illustrates how the ebXML Registry can be used to facilitate collaborative authoring capabilities.

Wikipedia is a leading edge wiki that allows collaborative authoring of web pages. Imagine a future version of wikipedia that uses an ebXML Registry-Repository as it back-end store.

  • Each section of each wiki page is stored in the repository of an ebXML Registry-Repository
  • There may physically be many many ebXML Registry-Repository's that federate together to handle the large amount of information in Wikipedia
  • By default each section may be edited by any registered user of Wikpedia (current model)
  • Registered users may be assigned specific roles and may belong to specific groups
  • A wikipedia section author or wikipedia administrator may configure custom policies for controlling access to any section based upon specific needs. These policies are defined in terms of Roles, Groups, Actions and Sections.
  • Each section has a status indicator which describes the level of review and approval the section has undergone. The status may be change only by authorized roles according to the configured policies
  • Each section is classified by as many categories as appropriate to allow rapid discovery
  • Instead of a simple keyword "search" field there is a "Discovery Page" that allows a user to choose from any number of discovery queries. For each query they can specify zero or more supported parameters in a search form. These parameters may include keywords to search in the identifier, name, description, categorization or other metadata. Category based searches are facilitated by structured trees that represent the categorization taxonomy.
  • With each section there may be a "Related Info" link that leads to a page where you can navigate specific relationships from that section to other sections or external content
  • Any registered user or automated service may subscribe to events that involve changes to a specific section or any section that matches a specified criteria. When such a change occurs the user or service is automatically notified of the change.
  • Although the sections reside in multiple physical ebXML Registry-Repository's they can link with each other seamlessly and with complete security. Searches can be done across the entire federation of ebXML Registry-Repository's seamlessly.

The result is a much improved wikipedia where information can be authored collaboratively, securely and delivered just in time while maintaining all the intricate relationships.

If anyone in the Wikipedia team is interested in pursuing this vision please contact Farrukh Najmi.

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OASIS ebXML Registry Standard (ISO 15000, part 3 and 4)

An ebXML Registry implementation MUST conform to the specifications defined by the OASIS ebXML Registry standard. The ebXML Registry have also been approved as an ISO standard under the name ISO 15000, parts 3 and 4.

Here is an article that provides an overview of what is new in ebXML Registry 3.0 standard.

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Profiles of ebXML Registry Standard

Nearly all of the various features defined by ebXML Registry standard are extensible. These features may be customized for specific deployment requirements. Sometimes such extensions of ebXML Registry need to be defined in a standard manner across an entire industry or business domain. In such cases a "profile" specification of ebXML Registry standard specifies how to extend ebXML Registry features in a standard manner for the specific deployment profile. These profiles enable interoperability by precisely specifying the set of usage restrictions and extension.


Here are some examples of profiles of ebXML Registry:

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How Does ebXML Registry-Repository Relate to UDDI

Click here for details.

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Limitation of ebXML Registry Standard

For a list of bugs and Requests For Enhancements (RFEs) for the ebXML Registry standard please see this page.

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What is JAXR API

JAXR API is short for Java API for XML Registries. It is the standard API within the Java platform for accessing all types of XML Registries. See some details here.

The JAXR API is based upon the same information model as ebXML Registry information model and as such is the natural API for ebXML Registry standard.

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What is freebXML Registry

The freebXML Registry project is an open source project that provides a royalty free implementation of the latest ebXML Registry standard. The project is led by several authors of the OASIS ebXML Registry standard and has always delivered the first, the most feature-complete and the most spec-compliant implementation of the ebXML Registry standard.

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Who is using freebXML Registry

The project is being used by several governments, vertical industries and organizations of various size from Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to fortune 500 companies. A partial listing may be seen here.

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What Standards are Implemented in freebXML Registry

  • XML Standards
    • ebXML Registry 3.0
    • XACML 1.0 for Role Based Access Control Policies
    • SOAP 1.1 with Attachments
    • WSDL 1.1
    • XML Signature 1.0
    • Web Services Security: SOAP Message Security 1.0
    • XSLT 1.0
  • Java Standards
    • JAXR 1.0
    • JAX-RPC 1.1
    • SAAJ 1.2
    • JAXB 1.0
    • JAXP 1.2
    • Java Server Faces 1.1
    • Java Server Pages
    • Java Servlet API
  • Other Standards
    • SQL-92
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Links

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freebXML Registry

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Standards


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Papers

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Presentations

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Tutorials

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