CECID Hermes Demonstrated Interoperability with Asian ebMS Products

Hong Kong, Peoples Republic of China - March 19, 2003 - Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID), Department of Computer Science and Information Systems (CSIS), The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is pleased to announce Hermes has successfully demonstrated interoperability with other Message Service Handler (MSH) in Phase 1 of the ebXML Interoperability Testing of Asia. Participating organizations in this phase included Samsung SDS, POSDATA, Innodigital and KTNET (Korea); Fujitsu, NEC, Sun Microsystems, Hitachi, NTT Data, and Infoteria (Japan); SKLSE of Wuhan University (China); Crimsonlogic (Singapore); GCOM (Chinese Taipei); and CECID (Hong Kong).

Organized by the ebXML Asia Interoperability Test Group and led by Innodigital and Fujitsu, the three tests of Phase 1 took place in January, February and March. The tests focused on interconnection of products developed under the OASIS ebXML Message Service specification V2.0 and Collaboration-Protocol Profile and Agreement specification V2.0. Features of one-way messaging and message with two payloads were tested. Through sending ebMS messages from one region to another over the Internet, participants demonstrated interoperability among their ebMS products.

The ebXML Asia Interoperability Test Group will plan Phase 2 of the test in the upcoming ebXML Asia Committee Meeting. Test results and certification program will also be discussed at this meeting, to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on March 26-28, 2003.

Hermes is an MSH implementation that is in compliance with the OASIS ebXML Message Service (ebMS V2) Standard. It supports secure messaging functions through widely-adopted Internet security technologies, such as XML Signature, SSL (Secure Socket Layer) and S/MIME (Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions). Hermes has also implemented reliable delivery features defined in ebMS Standard to ensure the exchanged message is received and intact. The feature list of Hermes includes message packaging, reliable messaging, message ordering, error handling, security, synchronous reply, message status service, and RDBMS persistent storage. Hermes also supports transport protocols, such as HTTP and SMTP, to suit different needs of large and small enterprises, and different business requirements.

Hermes has been implemented by developers at CECID under the auspices of Project Phoenix. Project Phoenix is primarily sponsored by the Innovation and Technology Commission of the Hong Kong Government. Hermes is available for free download at www.freebxml.org and is released as open-source software (OSS) under the Academic Free License. Since its release in September 2002, Hermes has recorded 1300+ downloads from 36 countries.

About CECID (http://www.cecid.hku.hk):
Established in January 2002, the Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID) at the University of Hong Kong conducts e-commerce research and development with the vision of helping Hong Kong increase its competitiveness in the international arena. CECID has the missions to develop e-commerce enabling technologies, to join important international e-commerce initiatives, to support e-commerce standardization for Hong Kong and the Asia Pacific Region, and to transfer e-commerce technology and skills to the community. As an OASIS member, CECID is participating in the standardization projects, such as ebXML and Universal Business Language (UBL). CECID also collaborates with a number of lead technology users in the Asia Pacific Region on the application of advanced e-commerce technologies.

About ebXML (http://www.ebxml.org):
The mission of ebXML is to provide an open XML-based infrastructure enabling the global use of electronic business information in an interoperable, secure and consistent manner by all parties. ebXML (Electronic Business using Extensible Markup Language), sponsored by UN/CEFACT and OASIS, is a modular suite of specifications that enables enterprises of any size and in any geographical location to conduct business over the Internet. Using ebXML, companies now have a standard method to exchange business messages, conduct trading relationships, communicate data in common terms and define and register business processes.

About OASIS (http://www.oasis-open.org):
OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, global consortium that drives the development, convergence and adoption of e-business standards. Members themselves set the OASIS technical agenda, using a lightweight, open process expressly designed to promote industry consensus and unite disparate efforts. OASIS produces worldwide standards for security, Web services, XML conformance, business transactions, electronic publishing, topic maps and interoperability within and between marketplaces.

PR Contacts for Press and Analysts:
Dorris Tai (cwtai@cecid.hku.hk)
Business Manager
Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID)
Dept. of Computer Science & Information Systems
The University of Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2859 2818
Fax: +852 2547 4611
URL: http://www.cecid.hku.hk