Looking Back and Ahead: CECID's Competency in E-Commerce Standardization

To build an e-commerce software infrastructure that enhances the capability of Hong Kong government and business enterprises to conduct electronic business locally and globally, there are three dimensions of interoperability that need to be achieved. They are messaging interoperability, business information interoperability, and business process interoperability. CECID is gradually extending its technology focus from business connectivity to business process engine and further to business information and process modeling tools.

CECID has focused on addressing the messaging interoperability by developing standardized messaging frameworks that enable secure and reliable exchange of electronic documents between different enterprise applications for conducting business. Based on ebXML, CECID has developed essential ebXML architectural components such as ebXML message service handler, Hermes, for business documents to exchange in a secure manner. Besides ebXML, the R&D team is now developing Hermes 2 to support other messaging standards, such as AS2 and Web Services.

After enabling business documents to exchange securely, CECID works on TranXnet, which is a generic business process execution engine governing the document exchange sequence among the applications. It provides not only an execution platform for both external B2B application, but also internal workflow application or EAI. Partners involving in an e-business activity develop applications to interface with TranXnet to exchange electronic documents. Before a business process is started, business partners first define the business process as XML standards, e.g. Business Process Specification Schema (BPSS) in the ebXML domain, Business Process Execution Language for Web Services (BPEL4WS).

Since November, CECID has proceeded to address the business information and process interoperability on the Internet. The new R&D initiatives involve standardization on the contents of electronic documents to be exchanged for conducting business, as well as standardization on business process that governs the document exchange sequences for conducting business. The development of Business Information Modeling (BIM) Tool and Business Process Modeling (BPM) Tool, aimed to achieve the business information and process interoperability respectively, is underway. These tools will support the process-driven, standards-based paradigm on XML and Web Services. This in turn brings benefits to organizations by enabling movement of business information smoothly within the organization and between the organization and its suppliers/customers via EAI and B2B integration. BIM and BPM tools are expected to complete by May 2006.

MTRC Staff Movement Data Synchronization Process Project

In an enterprise, data are collected by disparate systems and need to be synchronized across systems to ensure data consistency. At MTRC, the major subway operator in Hong Kong, employment records are frequently updated in the Human Resources Management System (HRMS) and Corporation Qualification Administration System (CQA). The data are then sent to several other systems at MTRC. To simplify and standardize MTRC's staff movement data synchronization process, CECID will provide an EAI solution. In this new pilot project with MTRC, data in source systems (HRMS and CQA) are synchronized with two critical systems, Engineering Traffic Management System (ETMS) and Operation Publication Distribution System (OPDS). The aim of this project is to improve the extensibility and flexibility of the current staff movement data synchronization process by using XML and Web Services standards.

From time to time, after employees join MTRC, their personal profile, job function, and/or employment status, demographic data and employment details need to be created or updated in the HRMS and CQA, and these data are supposed to be automatically synchronized with other systems to keep data up-to-date and consistent among systems. However, the existing interfaces between the HRMS/CQA, and the other systems are lack of standardized techniques and technologies for data exchange. To achieve interoperability, this project first defines data file in a more flexible XML format. After defining a standard data structure, a new centralized EAI architecture is proposed and Web Services technology is introduced to replace FTP as the data transfer protocol. This integration platform provides reliable messaging and data consistency across different systems.

The first phase of the project is on synchronization between CQA, ETMS and OPDS. The deployment has been done in August, and now the system is under pilot testing. This phase should be put into production in late 2004. The second phase will start in Q1 2005 which will put HRMS in the picture and aim at enhancing the reliability, extensibility and usability of the system.

• Architecture of Web Services Integration for the MTRC Staff Movement Data Synchronization