How Afilias Discovery Services Works

Overview of implementing Afilias Discovery Services in a supply chain network

Within a supply chain network, partners use their respective internal business applications to capture life cycle data for products and services, which includes detailed information about the events and transactions that occur in a business process. This stored data enables partners to make business decisions within their own organizations. However, to communicate effectively with one another, supply chain members need a mechanism that enables them to share relevant data in a secure and selective manner.

Afilias Discovery Services (ADS) leverages an open, web services protocol called the Extensible Supply-chain Discovery Service (ESDS) and provides a complementary Object Naming Service (ONS) that is compliant with EPCglobal standards (www.epcglobalinc.org ).

ADSADS also provides a common database repository to store key events, providing a referral source for detailed lookups to other partners' business applications. Using an open standard client interface, supply chain partners can inject referrals links to detailed business data into the ADS system. ADS provides customized security options that specify which partners can access the information. The same client interface provides lookup facilities that enable authorized partners to seek more detailed information available from elsewhere in the supply chain, or refer to an ONS when no other information is available.

In terms of defining and incorporating open standards for Discovery Services, Afilias is actively involved in the following:

EPCglobal Data Discovery JRG
The need to define requirements for a standard around Discovery Services (DS) has been recognized by standards bodies such as EPCglobal, who has incorporated DS into the Core Services of its Architectural framework. Afilias is actively involved in the Data Discovery Joint Requirements Group committee working on this effort and is committed to ensuring that any implementation of DS, such as ADS is open standards-based.

IETF ESDS Web Service Open Protocol
In an effort to involve the Internet community in the development of the Extensible Supply-chain Discovery Service (ESDS) protocol, the Afilias development team has submitted the following design documents to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF):

Comments about these documents can be sent to the development teamESDS group using the following email address: esds@ietf.org .