Microsoft BizTalk for B2B E-Commerce

The typical BizTalk message (see Figure 1) shows a platform-neutral XML message with delivery details defined by the BizTalk tags as in an envelope. BizTalk does not dictate any specific hardware, operating system or language for message transmittal, receipt or processing. The sending and receiving organizations can make these decisions independently of each other.

The actual documents to be delivered are contained in the of the message. Clearly, in this example these documents are one or more purchase orders. The XML tags that detail the content of these purchase orders may be defined by the sending enterprise (customer.com in this case) and so must also be understood by the receiving enterprise (supplier.com). The definition and interpretation of these XML tags must be agreed by both enterprises ­ hence the establishment of trading communities as discussed in last month's column, typically organized by industry.

For example, in February General Motors, Ford and Daimler-Chrysler, strong competitors in the USA, joined forces to create one of the world's largest trading communities to buy $240 billion per year from tens of thousands of suppliers. In this case, the relevant document XML tags will be defined by these large customers and must be understood by their many suppliers if they are to do business with them in the future. But, in most cases, customers and suppliers that trade with each other in many industries must all agree on their own common XML tags.

As described in earlier columns, XML tags are based on agreed definitions of meta data. This meta data is defined from integrated data models, using established data modeling methods such as information engineering (IE) and enterprise engineering (EE). Once identified, this meta data is captured and managed in meta data repositories by modeling tools. This integrated meta data is used to generate data definition language (DDL) scripts automatically for integrated databases.

However, we are now seeing the emergence of a new class of modeling tools that also use this same meta data to generate XML data files, document type definition (DTD) files and document content description (DCD) ­ or XML schema files required by BizTalk and trading communities. We are also seeing the emergence of new XML database products and B2B integration servers.

Clive Finkelstein, the father of information engineering (IE), is an international consultant and an instructor. He is the managing director of Information Engineering Services Pty Ltd (IES) in Australia. You may contact Clive Finkelstein by e-mail at cfink@ies.aust.com.