Universal Description, Discovery and Integration

Matthew J. Dovey

Oxford University

ZIG – Washington December 2000

UDDI

• Motivation from the “e-business” community• Consortium of major computer systems vendors

including by Ariba, Microsoft, IBM, Sun• Not necessarily “new” concept or technically rich

(especially in the current drafts)• But lot of enthusiasm and support which is more

important for interoperability standard

UDDI

• e-marketplace model– Businesses advertise services– Customers/clients locate services (c.f. registries

of Z39.50 services ala IndexData/SeaChange or ILL/NCIP proposed directories)

– Client software obtain protocol level information needed to connect and interact with the service (c.f. Explain)

UDDI

– Data are in XML model– Interaction with the registry (search, update etc.) via

SOAP (i.e. XML normally over http)

UDDI is a “next layer” in an emerging stack enabling rich Web services. UDDI uses standards-based technologies such as TCP/IP, HTTP, XML and SOAP to create a uniform service description format and service discovery protocol.

Data Model UDDI

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EDI

EDI

Data Model UDDI

OCLC

FirstSearch

CORCZ39.50

(ASN.1 or WDSL Spec)

Host=Port=Database=(Explain Stuff)

Bib-1

UUID

Profile Specification(e.g. Bath)

Local ProfileSpecifications(Conformance,Record format)

ILL or CIP

For LibrariesOther Value

Added Service

Explain and UDDI

• Alternative mechanism for publishing Explain and Explain-lite (registry of servers)

• UDDI front to existing Explain

• Why? Increased visibility of services

ASN.1 and WSDL

• ASN.1 could be recast in WSDL– Could produce the core spec. better suited to

XML encodings– Next generation tools would build SOAP/XP

layers automagically on discovering the protocol from the UDDI register

– Raises the visibility of Z39.50

Directories UDDI

– Z39.50 Service Registry?– ILL/NCIP Registry?

– (Possibly as front to Explain/LDAP?)

UDDI

• Technical Issues– Very naïve search interface at the moment (Z39.50 role?)– Metadata model is still naïve (Role for ISO 2146 like work?)– Issues of global distributed registry (replication)– Multiple related tModels (e.g. reflecting the relationship

between protocol, attribute sets, profiles, and service specifics)

• BUT– Lot of interest/backing

THIS IS WHERE TO BE SEEN TO ATTRACT e-CUSTOMERS