Brief Guide to eCo

[Brian Hayes <Brian.Hayes@Commerceone.com>]

Brief Guide to eCo from Murray Maloney.

The Web entry point for eCo is http://eco.commerce.net/
See http://eco.commerce.net/specs/index.cfm for an overview of eCo. 
Please see http://eco.commerce.net/specs/index.cfm for interfaces, 
XML DTDs, and sample instances.

The eCo Architectural Specification describes an e-commerce system 
in seven layers that can be accessed to answer such business and 
systems questions as:

	What other businesses can I find? 
	What services do they offer? 
	What kinds of interactions do they expect? 
	What protocols do they follow? 
	Can our systems communicate? 
	What application interfaces do they provide? 
	Are our interfaces compatible? 
	What information must we exchange? 

The basic model is:

		Networks 			]
contain		Markets		]
where				Businesses	]
provide/use				Services		]
which conduct				Interactions]
by exchanging					Documents
]
containing							Information
Items	]

eCo specifies document types and interfaces that must be implemented
for each layer supported. The top three layers is all that is required
to register and interoperate in a networked marketplace. The Service
and Interaction layers can be used to publish eCo-compliant interfaces 
to your services and interactions (like your 'Business Process' and 'Step').
The Document and Information Item layers (optional) are intended to be
used by Network and Market makers to establish/register the business 
document and data element types that are used within a given network
or market. 

Let me know if this helps.