Weiland, John R. NMIMC GS wrote:

John,

I cannot recall whether you were present on Thursday afternoon when I presented ebXML Registry and Repository (ebReg).

In that brief presentation I described how an ebXML Registry is not just for design time but is playing several different roles for benefit of end-users and run-time.

I started by using the following analogy:

"ebReg is to web services what relational databases were to enterprise applications"

If we ask the question: Are relational databases needed by enterprise applications only at run time?

Of course we come to the conclusion that the answer is: NO

ebXML Registry may have started with the idea of being a place to manage CPP/A, BPSS, UBL schemas etc. but it was designed as a general purpose Content Management solution.

I lead an open source project that implements ebReg: http://ebxmlrr.sourceforge.net

Out of some 100+ users of our ebReg implementation, no more that 5 use it at design time. All the remainder use it at run time and for use by actual end users. Here are some examples:

SDMX

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A group of major financial institutions such as IMF, World Bank, Swiss Banks etc. use ebXML Registry to manage third world debt statistics. A live registry may be seen at:

http://sdmx.oecd.org/sdmxDemo/index.jsp

Apelon

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A provider of clinical software uses an ebXML Registry to manage and serve medical guidelines and protocols. The end users are doctors and nurses.

http://www.apelon.com

HL7

------ NIST in the US Government operates an ebXML Registry to manage HL7 Conformance templates. It is used by the HL7 user community.

http://hcxw2k1.nist.gov:8080/hl7services/index.jsp

The above examples are just a few I could think of to show that ebXML Registry is not just for design time and in fact is much more useful at run-time.

If this issue continues to recur then I suggest that we schedule a discussion in this in a subsequent TC con call so we can reach a common understanding on this important issue.