CRML Expands the ebXML Specification
XML Magazine, 20 February 2002
http://www.fawcette.com/xmlmag/2002_02/magazine/departments/marketscan/qt_iona/page4.asp


The ever-growing ebXML specification has been expanded a little further with 
the addition of Customer Relations Markup Language (CRML). CRML was developed 
by several members of the OASIS consortium and combines the previously developed 
specs xCIL and xNAL into one enhanced specification for customer relations.

xCIL was a customer information language, while xNAL was a name and address 
language. Some software vendors were using them, some were not, and they were 
not part of a recognized World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard. These two 
specs were combined and made part of ebXML, which is recognized by the W3C.

"I think the main thing that CRML does is it goes beyond creating a customer 
name and address association in a database," said Marcus Goncalves, chief technology 
officer of Virtual Access Networks and one of the developers of CRML. "Now a company 
can create associations with their customers because data is normalized into XML." 
Data is often siloed in companies, either by design or because the databases cannot 
exchange data. CRML allows for retrieving data from multiple data sources and databases 
by using XML as the common format.

ebXML isn't quite as popular as its supporters would have us believe, said 
Uttam Narsu (cq), director of application development research for The Giga Information 
Group, but CRML is a complimentary technology to the standard.

"The real key to it is at some level ebXML is something of a horizontal platform where 
you can meet a variety of targeted vertical standards," he said. "CRML potentially 
fills a need in a horizontal domain because it's not tied to finance or any other 
vertical, so it does meet some need."

Goncalves hopes CRML will also be used with UDDI, so in addition to using the UDDI 
registry as a huge Yellow Pages, it can be used to create relationships between a 
company and all of its partners or peers.

Good luck on that, said Narsu, who thinks UDDI has the least amount of support and 
therefore the least potential for adoption. "If you look at what's physically deployed 
in those registries today, frankly it's junk. There's no ecosystem of activity around 
it like the W3C," he said.  - Andy Patrizio