2.

B

ACKGROUND

2.1 Introduction 

This section gives some background information on an existing web standard for business 

discovery and description and analyses its relevance, if any, to a potential advanced web 

directory for local Irish businesses. It outlines the grounds for pursuing an independent 

design  format  rather  than  adopting  this  web  standard.  Finally,  an  overview  of  the 

technologies to be used in the implementation is provided. 

2.2 UDDI  

The  Universal  Discovery,  Description  and  Integration  initiative  (

http://uddi.org

)  is  an 

emerging web service. Web services are a loosely defined set of open technologies such 

as XML, SOAP, WSDL and UDDI, which are intended to allow businesses to find and 

interact with each other on the web through a set of standardised tools. The UDDI system 

is based around registries in which businesses describe their products and services There 

are  currently  four  major  UDDI  registries  online,  hosted  by  IBM  (http://uddi.ibm.com), 

Microsoft  (http://uddi.microsoft.com),  SAP  (http://uddi.sap.com)  and,  most  recently, 

NTT Communications (http://www.ntt.com/uddi/index e.html). Within the registry, listed 

businesses are referred to as  nodes  and they contain the following information 

    *  Business  Entity.  A  business  entity  represents  information  about  a  business.  Each 

business entity contains a unique identifier, the business name, a short description of the 

business, some basic contact information, a list of categories and identifiers that describe 

the business, and a URL pointing to more information about the business. 

    *  Business  Service.  Associated  with  the  business  entity  is  a  list  of  business  services 

offered by the business entity. Each business service entry contains a business description 

of  the  service,  a  list  of  categories  that  describe  the  service,  and  a  list  of  pointers  to 

references and information related to the service. 

    *  Specification  Pointers.  Associated  with  each  business  service  entry  is  a  list  of 

binding templates that point to specifications and other technical information about the 

service. For example, a binding template might point to a URL that supplies information 

on how to invoke the service. The specification pointers also associate the service with a 

service type. 

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