Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Here is a piece of FUD regarding ebXML registry that I simply had to respond to.

Sadly, Anne once again shows a complete and utter bias towards UDDI and against ebXML Registry in this interview.

When asked "Are there any competing technologies?" she gives an example of a recent IBM product and does not even mention ebXML Registry which is an approved ISO standard and has been around for seven years. This is quite deliberate and not a simple oversight. She is quite aware of ebXML Registry as based on numerous debates I have engaged with her on the subject.

When the interviewer asks:

"Now, isn't there an issue as to whether to use UDDI or ebXML?",

she gives a blanket dismissal without giving any facts to back up her blanket assertions:

"I don't think there's an issue at all. There's a spec out there called ebXML Registry, but nobody's using it."

Here are some hard facts that should dispel such FUD...

  • ebXML Registry is not just "a spec out there". It is an approved ISO Standard. UDDI is not an ISO standard.
  • ebXML Registry is being used by major governments such as US, Canada, Spain, Norway. In US it is powering the Department of Defense metadata registry as well as being used in Department of Education.
  • ebXML Registry is being used by major world institutions like United Nations
  • ebXML Registry has been adopted by entire vertical such as IHE and HL7 in healthcare, OGC in GIS, SDMX in statistics, GS1 (formerly RosettaNet) in supply chain
  • ebXML Registry is the foundation for HL7 ESB product from IBM. Since IBM product was cited by Anne instead of ebXML Registry, and since IBM was a huge backer of UDDI, it begs the followingt questions:
    • Why did IBM use ebXML Registry from the freebXML Registry open source project instead of their own UDDI registry?
    • Why did IBM bother creating IBM WebSphere Registry and Repository product beyond their basic UDDI registry product?
  • ebXML Regtistry is being used in products from Adobe and others
Many of above adoption instances are cited at:

<http://ebxmlrr.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Showcase>

Note that above link shows adoption of one specific implementation of ebXML Registry called freebXML Registry opensource project. There are several other implementations of the standard whose deployments are not included in that link.

Most recently, the Open GIS Consortium chose ebXML Registry over UDDI:

<http://xml.coverpages.org/OGC-ebRIM-200701.html>

All of these successes have been based on a grassroots standard with zero funding. In contrast UDDI has been funded so well by a couple of large companies that when uddi.org disbanded the change left over in their coffers was US $24,000.

The following page compares UDDI and ebXML Registry:

<http://ebxmlrr.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Overview/comparisonWithUDDI>

The following paper includes a feature comparison between the two at its end:

SOA Registry-Repository White Paper

A feature comparison matrix is also available here:

<http://ebxmlrr.sourceforge.net/tmp/Registry_Capability_Matrix.html>

In light of all this data, it is frankly astonishing for an industry analyst like Anne to assert that no one is using ebXML Registry.

It should be enough for UDDI proponents to simply make their case for why they think UDDI is such a good thing. Unfortunately they often tend to resort to FUD against ebXML Registry.

The UDDI TC suspended operations some time back. As mentioned in TC minutes:

<http://www.oasis-open.org/archives/uddi-spec/200611/msg00008.html>

"
It was agreed unanimously that we will suspend operation of the TC for six months from the publication of CR92, at which time we will consider whether there is any further need for the TC. It’s time to declare success!"

The ebXML Registry standard and TC in comparison is alive, well and seeing healthy adoption, both commercially and in opensource.
We do not plan to declare "Mission accomplished" for a very long time.

On a very personal level, I have bet the farm on ebXML Registry by founding Wellfleet Software Corporarion, a startup dedicated to furthering ebXML Registry adoption and deployment world-wide. So far, the ebXML Registry business is booming.