From: John Flynn (jflynn@bbn.com)
Date: 06/21/01
By John Pallatto <mailto:jpallatto@iw.com> The Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) <http://chtah.com/a/hA7MU$BAD2PvAAFKML6AD2k9IT0/wnmp557?aid=VALUEaidVALUE&us erid=VALUEuseridVALUE&password=VALUEpasswordVALUE&pid=VALUEpidVALUE> organization this week released the second version of the Web services specification designed to make it easier for enterprises around the world to do business on the Internet. The second version is being released little more than half a year after Ariba, IBM, and Microsoft announced they were collaborating on developing UDDI as a way for enterprises to create Web services that allow them to dynamically build relationships and execute transactions on the Web. Currently, more than 280 companies have joined the effort to develop the UDDI standard. "One of the most important capabilities that people have to have as they work in the Internet space is a way to find each other," said Chris Thomas, Intel's chief e-business strategist. UDDI provides a way for companies to dynamically find new opportunities to work together and to use Web services to make doing business as easy as possible, he said. Intel is taking a leading role in developing UDDI and in helping ensure it remains an open standard that is widely accepted and adopted by companies that are developing Internet technology, as well as by customers who are building e-business applications. The computer industry and enterprise computing are moving into the era of "macroprocessing," which will be just as important to business as the advent of microprocessors, Thomas predicted. Macroprocessing "is about what happens when the Internet meets the enterprise" and provides ways for companies to use their networks and their collective computing power to discover new ways of doing business, he said. UDDI is essential to macroprocessing's working, according to Thomas. UDDI version 2 is designed to make it easier for large, complex organizations to describe their organizational structure on the Internet, thereby making it easier for other companies to locate an enterprise with exactly the kind of product or service they are looking for. Version 2 also enables users to work with more industry-specific categories and identifiers so businesses can describe themselves in more detail on the Web. This goes hand in hand with another key feature: the addition of more-flexible search options that enable applications to use more-expressive query terms to search the UDDI business registry. The new version also has internationalization features that will allow companies to describe themselves in multiple languages. One of the next steps in demonstrating the practicality of UDDI will likely involve a group of companies on the UDDI project setting up a UDDI server to show enterprises how they can work with the standard, Thomas said. A number of UDDI-based Web services should start to appear on the Internet over the next year, and these should encourage other enterprises to take advantage of them. Many of the companies that make up the UDDI community are meeting in Atlanta this week to discuss the requirements for version 3 of the UDDI specification. John Flynn (703) 284-4612 BBN Technologies A Verizon Company
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