Ontologically Enhanced RosettaNet B2B Integration

Xml And Rosettanet

XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a language for describing and exchanging data. Before the introduction of XML, business partners needed to accommodate various file formats, such as flat files or different EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) versions, and setup a parsing/management infrastructures for each format used by a partner. The introduction of XML lowered the integration barriers between organisations, as partners could reuse their XML infrastructure for all exchanged documents between all partners. The main two schema languages associated to the XML standard are DTD (Document Type Definition language) and XSD (XML Schema Definition language). These schema languages enable business partners to validate whether incoming and outgoing documents conform to a required structure.

The use of XML as such does not resolve interoperability issues in B2B integrations, since the exchange of XML documents does not mean that the documents are understood similarly. Therefore, standards are needed that guide how XML is used in B2B integrations. RosettaNet¹ is one such XML-based B2B standard; already in 2004, RosettaNet had over 3000 documented implementations (Damodaran, 2004). Other common B2B standards include OAGIS², ebXML³ and UBL⁴.