About Registries and Repositories

An XML registry is an infrastructure that enables the building, deployment, and discovery of web services. It is a neutral third party that facilitates dynamic and loosely coupled business-to-business (B2B) interactions. A registry is available to organizations as a shared resource, normally in the form of a web-based service.

Currently, several specifications for XML registries exist. These specifications include

• The ebXML Registry and Repository standard, which is sponsored by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) and the United Nations Centre for the Facilitation of Procedures and Practices in Administration, Commerce and Transport (U.N./CEFACT). ebXML stands for Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language.

• The Universal Description, Discovery, and Integration (UDDI) protocol, which is developed by a vendor consortium.

A registry provider is an implementation of a registry that conforms to a specification for XML registries.

While a UDDI registry stores information about businesses and the services they offer, an ebXML registry has a much wider scope. It is a repository as well as a registry. A repository stores arbitrary content as well as information about that content. In other words, a repository stores data as well as metadata. The ebXML Registry standard defines an interoperable Enterprise Content Management (ECM) API for web services.

An ebXML registry and repository is to the web what a relational database is to enterprise applications: it provides a means for web services and web applications to store and share content and metadata.

An ebXML registry can be part of a registry federation, an affiliated group of registries. For example, the health ministry of a country in Europe could operate a registry, and that registry could be part of a federation that included the registries of other European health ministries.

Service Registry implements version 3.0 of the ebXML Registry and Repository specification. The specification is in two parts:

• The ebXML Registry Services and Protocols Specification (“ebXML RS”) defines the services and protocols for an ebXML Registry.

• The ebXML Registry Information Model Specification (“ebXML RIM”) defines the types of metadata and content that can be stored in an ebXML Registry.

You can find the latest public versions of these specifications by going to the OASIS web site and following the links to ebXML RIM V3.0 and ebXML RS V3.0.