What is ebXML?

Electronic Business using eXtensible Markup Language, the 'eb' in ebXML stands for electronic business," and you can pronounce the phrase as "electronic business XML," "e-biz XML," "e-business XML," or simply "ee-bee-ex-em-el". ebXML is a family of XML based standards sponsored by OASIS and UN/CEFACT whose mission is to provide an open, XML-based infrastructure that enables the global use of electronic business information in an interoperable, secure and consistent manner by all trading partners.

ebXML was published in 1999 as an initiative of the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). The original project envisioned five layers of data specification, including XML standards for:

-Business processes,
-Collaboration protocol agreements,
-Core data components,
-Messaging, &
-Registries and repositories

High-level overview of ebXML interaction between two companies (source: www.ibm.com, author:David Mertz)

ebXML is not itself a standard, rather, it is a container for several key specification standards administered by UN/CEFACT and OASIS.

Key ebXML standards include ebXML Messaging Services, ebXML Registry, ebXML Business Process Specification Schema and ebXML Collaboration Protocol Profile and Agreement (CPP/CPA).

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has approved the following five ebXML specifications as the ISO 15000 standard, under the general title, Electronic business eXtensible markup language:

ISO 15000-1: ebXML Collaborative Partner Profile Agreement
ISO 15000-2: ebXML Messaging Service Specification
ISO 15000-3: ebXML Registry Information Model
ISO 15000-4: ebXML Registry Services Specification
ISO 15000-5: ebXML Core Components Technical Specification, Version 2.01

OASIS technical committees and UN/CEFACT retain the responsibility for maintaining and advancing the above specifications.

The freebXML.org initiative was established to promote development and adoption of ebXML-based open-source software.

I highly suggest you to go through the article called "Understanding ebXML, Untangling the business Web of the future", which can give you a very good idea of how each profile and specification related to each other.

Additional reading:

ebXMl Tutorial
http://www.javapassion.com/webservices/ebXML4.pdf