Remember the promise of the paperless office? Computers communicating electronically with one another were going to replace the tons of paperwork that characterized business-to-business interaction: purchase orders, invoices, payments, confirmations, documentation. The list was nearly endless. Electronic document interchange (EDI) was going to be the savior of our systems and protector of our forests.

It didn't happen. EDI never met the challenges of connecting scores of proprietary and mission-critical applications. Now, a new successor is stepping up to the challenge.

RosettaNet is both a set of standards and a global consortium of more than 500 electronic component, IT and semiconductor manufacturing companies working to create, implement and promote open e-business process standards. Founded in 1998, RosettaNet aims to align specific business processes among trading partners by defining and standardizing up to 100 e-business transaction processes so that two companies' back-end systems can talk directly to each other.

RosettaNet takes its name from the Rosetta stone, which a soldier in Napoleon's army discovered in Egypt in 1799. Since it contained parallel inscriptions in both Greek characters and Egyptian hieroglyphics, it provided a key to deciphering ancient Egyptian writing.

This modern electronic translator speaks the contemporary languages of computer interoperability—XML and SOAP—which should allow disparate systems and business processes from different organizations to understand and exchange data with one another.

The consortium began its Herculean task by looking at supply chain processes. Members used business-process modeling to identify the elements of a working business process and create a clearly defined model of current trading partner interfaces. After extensively researching every level of the supply chain, as well as analyzing misalignments and inefficiencies, they developed a set of generic, standardized processes that could serve as the basis for real-world business-to-business alignment.

These Partner Interface Processes (PIP) are specialized system-to-system, XML-based dialogues. Each PIP specification includes a business document and a detailed business process that includes interaction, data transmission, security and error-handling requirements.

PIPs use two data dictionaries—one for business properties and another for technical properties—that help different companies define the same product in exactly the same way. The RosettaNet Implementation Framework defines an exchange protocol, and the Message Guidelines instruct implementers on how to encode individual PIPs into specific packages.

Such efforts at standardizing generic processes have been tried before and failed. RosettaNet, however, seems more carefully grounded in the real world, and its PIPs are tested by consortium members. After consortium partners have agreed through a voting process that a PIP meets industry needs, it is then published on the RosettaNet Web site and is available for anyone to use.

絡(luò)世達(dá)網(wǎng)

還記得無(wú)紙辦公室的承諾嗎?相互提供電子通信方式的計(jì)算機(jī)將替代數(shù)以噸計(jì)的體現(xiàn)公司對(duì)公司業(yè)務(wù)的書面工作：訂購(gòu)單、發(fā)票、付款、確認(rèn)、文檔等，幾乎沒(méi)有窮盡。電子文檔交換(EDI)將是系統(tǒng)的救世主和森林的保護(hù)神。

但是這一切沒(méi)有發(fā)生。EDI從來(lái)沒(méi)有滿足連接眾多專有的和關(guān)鍵任務(wù)的應(yīng)用程序這個(gè)挑戰(zhàn)?，F(xiàn)在，一個(gè)新的后續(xù)者出來(lái)迎接挑戰(zhàn)。

絡(luò)世達(dá)網(wǎng)既是一組標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，也是一個(gè)由500多家電子元件、IT和半導(dǎo)體制造商組成的國(guó)際組織，它致力于制定、實(shí)施和促進(jìn)開放的電子商務(wù)流程的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。絡(luò)世達(dá)網(wǎng)成立于1998年，其目的是通過(guò)定義近100個(gè)電子商務(wù)交易過(guò)程并對(duì)其實(shí)現(xiàn)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)化，以使貿(mào)易伙伴之間具體的業(yè)務(wù)過(guò)程互相配合起來(lái)，從而使兩家公司的后臺(tái)系統(tǒng)互相通話。

絡(luò)世達(dá)網(wǎng)的名字來(lái)源于絡(luò)世達(dá)石，該石頭是拿破侖軍隊(duì)的一名士兵1799年在埃及發(fā)現(xiàn)的。由于它上面并列地刻著希臘字符和埃及象形文字，它為解讀古代埃及文獻(xiàn)提供了一把鑰匙。

而這個(gè)現(xiàn)代的電子翻譯講著當(dāng)代計(jì)算機(jī)互相交流的語(yǔ)言——XML和SOAP，它們?cè)试S不同組織的不同系統(tǒng)和業(yè)務(wù)過(guò)程能相互理解和交換數(shù)據(jù)。

該聯(lián)盟從研究供應(yīng)鏈的過(guò)程入手開始這個(gè)艱巨的任務(wù)。成員單位使用業(yè)務(wù)過(guò)程模型來(lái)識(shí)別一個(gè)工作著的業(yè)務(wù)過(guò)程的組成單元，并生成定義清晰的當(dāng)前貿(mào)易伙伴界面的模型。在全面研究了供應(yīng)鏈的方方面面以及分析了不一致和低效之處后，他們開發(fā)了一組一般化的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)過(guò)程，它們是真實(shí)世界中公司對(duì)公司整合的基礎(chǔ)。

這些伙伴界面過(guò)程(PIP)專注于系統(tǒng)對(duì)系統(tǒng)、基于XML的對(duì)話。每個(gè)PIP規(guī)范包括業(yè)務(wù)文檔和詳細(xì)的業(yè)務(wù)過(guò)程，該過(guò)程包括交互、數(shù)據(jù)傳輸、安全和糾錯(cuò)的要求。

PIP使用兩本數(shù)據(jù)字典，其中一本關(guān)于業(yè)務(wù)特性，另一本關(guān)于技術(shù)特性，它們有助于不同的公司以完全一樣的方式定義同一產(chǎn)品。絡(luò)世達(dá)網(wǎng)實(shí)施框架定義交換協(xié)議，消息指導(dǎo)方針指示實(shí)施者如何把各個(gè)PIP編進(jìn)具體的軟件包中。

這些對(duì)一般過(guò)程標(biāo)準(zhǔn)化的研究以前也有人做過(guò)，但失敗了。而絡(luò)世達(dá)網(wǎng)看來(lái)更小心翼翼地貼近真實(shí)世界，它的PIP由聯(lián)盟成員加以考核。聯(lián)盟伙伴在經(jīng)過(guò)投票，確認(rèn)了一個(gè)PIP滿足業(yè)界要求之后，就在絡(luò)世達(dá)網(wǎng)站上公布了，任何人都可以使用。