Increasing speed and efficiency in the setup of e-business linkages – the need for global e-business interoperability testing

The major challenge that European industries as well as the public sector are facing over the next decade is the transformation towards globally networked enterprises and shared service centers. A key requirement is interoperability, i.e. the ability of an enterprise to efficiently establish, conduct and develop e-business relationships with other organizations and individuals. While an increasing number of e-business specifications is being created and adopted, it is still cumbersome to achieve and demonstrate full compliance with the specified standards. Consequently, more and improved e-business testing capabilities are needed, particularly in situations where e-business standards are to support complex interactions among a larger number of organizations. 

The Global e-Business Interoperability Test Bed project (GITB) focuses on methodologies and architectures that support e-business standards assessment and testing activities from early stages of eBusiness standards implementation, to proof-of-concept demonstrations, to conformance and interoperability testing. The main and long term objective of GITB is to develop, under EU support and guidance,  a set up of a comprehensive and global eBusiness interoperability test bed system in a global collaboration of European, North American and Asian partners. GITB is a global initiative hosted by CEN and supported by ETSI, EIC, NIST, KorBIT and the industry associations AIAG and IAI.

The first phase of GITB (10/2008 – 12/2009) will deliver a baseline assessment of existing testing requirements and testing capabilities in order to outline the existing gaps in e-business testing. Based on the contribution and input of user communities, a roadmap towards a global e-business interoperability testbed will be developed.

Industry users, software vendors, standards development organizations (SDOs) and test service providers are strongly encouraged to contribute their views and visions to the GITB testbed. Please subscribe to our mailing list for more information and participate in our next Open Meeting.