Proposal to Profile ebMS v3 announced

["Pim van der Eijk" <lists@sonnenglanz.net>]

http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/ebxml-msg/200802/msg00030.html
http://ebxml.xml.org/news/proposal-to-profile-ebms-v3-on-behalf-of-timothy-b
ennett-drummond-group

A group of B2B industry leaders representing Cisco Systems, the Drummond
Group, Extol International, and Sterling Commerce would like to propose the
formation of a subproject within the ebXML Messaging Services TC with the
intention of developing and publishing a profile of the ebMS v3.0
specification.

This profile will leverage the existing work done by the ebXML MS TC to
provide guidance for a standardized methodology for the secure and
document-agnostic exchange of B2B payloads using a Web services platform. By
constraining the ebMS v3.0 specification and the underlying WS-I profiles
for messaging packaging, transport, security, and non-repudiation, the
proposed profile will focus on providing an entry-level on-ramp for Web
services B2B messaging. The end goal of this profile development is to
replicate and strategically extend the existing functional requirements
currently satisfied by RFC4130 (AS2) by mapping those requirements onto the
Web services platform. We believe that the ebMS v3.0 provides a robust
specification and a respected standards body, and much of the work done by
this TC can be leveraged for this business need.

The group proposing this profile see the business value of such a profile
and are committed to authoring the profile under the guidance and support of
the TC. The companies represented above have committed to development of the
profile, implementing the profile in product-with-version, and participation
in a full matrix interoperability test.

Last year, a group of B2B software vendors had a series of technical
discussions to formulate an initial set of functional requirements that
would comprise a secure, document-agnostic Web services B2B messaging
standard. The following is a summary of those requirements that had general
consensus among the participants:

+ All messages must use SOAP 1.1 enveloping structure SOAP 1.1, 
+ WS-Security, SOAP w/Attachments, and WS-Addressing were
identified as the fundamental underlying WS-* specifications.
+ WS-I Basic Profile, WS-I Basic Security Profile, and WS-I
Attachments Profile were identified as relevant WS-* profiles to leverage.
+ All business document payloads must be transmitted in the message as
SOAP Attachments and are to be agnostic with respect to any SOAP operations
or WSDL definitions.
+ No payloads will be included in the SOAP body element Multiple 
+ document payloads may be supported Application of payload compression 
+ may be supported, and if so must
occur prior to attaching the document and prior to the application to any
message-level security
+ The use of WS-Addressing header constructs in order to facilitate
route and endpoint identification of exchange messages, and to relate
request-reply message exchange patterns.
+ Support for message-level security including various combinations of
XML Dsig and/or XML Encryption as governed by WS-Security, constrained to
use only X.509 security tokens and detached signatures only.
+ Support for business non-repudiation acknowledgements similar to
RFC3798 (MDN)
+ Support for only the One-Way/Push (synchronous and asynchronous) and
the Two-Way/Push-and-Push (asynchronous only) MEPs.

After reviewing these initial functional requirements, it was readily
apparent that these requirements overlapped with the existing protocol
specified by RFC4130 (AS2). With the recent publication of the ebMS v3
specification, it was also clear that ebMS v3 shared some common ground with
these requirements as well. As such we believe a profile that maps these
requirements onto the ebMS v3 specification will not only provide businesses
with a simplified on-ramp to Web services B2B messaging (including verticals
that might wish to migrate from AS2 to Web services), but could serve as a
pre-cursor to a full implementation of the ebMS v3 specification.

The technical discussions further produced an initial generalized roadmap of
the evolution of the profile development in different
phases:

Phase I: Basic Web services Transport and Security =E2=80=93 WS-I, SOAP 1=
.1, SwA, WS-Security, and WS-Addressing are focal points, with simple
document-agnostic message exchange choreograhies with and without business
non-repudiation.

Phase II: Advanced Web services B2B Topics =E2=80=93 Quality of Service
concerns (Reliable Messaging), Very Large Message exchange, and perhaps more
complex message exchange choreographies.

Phase III: Niche Functionality =E2=80=93 SOAP 1.2, Secure Conversations, =
and other WS-* specs such as Trust, Identity, Policy, etc.

If these requirements are actualized by our proposed ebMS v3 profile, the
phased evolution of this extended functionality could be realized in either
a full implementation of the ebMS v3 specification or by extending the
initial profile.

We thank this TC ahead of time for considering this proposal and we welcome
any comments or feedback.

Sincerely,

Timothy Bennett, Drummond Group
John Voss, Cisco Systems
Mark Denchy, Extol International
Mike Maxwell, Sterling Commerce