Active Digital Profile

Business Layers Leads Effort to Develop First XML-Based eProvisioning Specification

Check Point Software Technologies, ePresence, Netigy, Novell and Other Leading Companies Applaud Proposed Active Digital Profile (ADPr) Specification

ROCHELLE PARK, NJ. November 28, 2000.

Business Layers, the company that first defined eProvisioning to help organizations map business activities onto their digital infrastructures, is now leading the effort to make a common XML-based eProvisioning specification available industry-wide. Together with leading industry partners, Business Layers will deliver the Active Digital Profile (ADPr) specification, which leverages the company's expertise in developing digital profile-based eProvisioning software.

ADPr is an XML-based schema designed to provide a vendor- and platform-independent exchange of provisioning information, offering the first universal specification to securely allocate and deploy IT applications, devices, systems, and services to employees, business partners, and customers. Companies that have commended this proposed specification include Check Point Software Technologies, Ltd., ePresence, Inc., Netigy, and Novell.

"As companies continuously integrate new IT capabilities and processes, provisioning employees, customers, and business partners has become an increasingly difficult task. Many systems use different and incompatible methods to provision resources, and often do not work equally well across intranets, extranets, and the Internet," explained Adrian Viego, Chief Technology Officer of Business Layers. "The ADPr specification is designed to address these issues, offering a broad solution to automate the allocation of resources to users across multiple systems."

ADPr allows multiple systems to exchange a complete set of provisioning information - including the action to be taken, the data required to perform the action, authentication and authorization information about the requestor, the relationship between the systems, and any other context that defines the environment of the request.

The specification provides for the industry-wide development of eProvision-enabled solutions that cover the gamut from business processes to IT resource allocation. Organizations using these solutions can dramatically reduce the time, cost, and effort typically associated with allocating resources to employees, customers, and business partners.

"Business Layers has developed its products aggressively to better serve the market for directory provisioning. Such eProvisioning capabilities help organizations optimize open access to the systems, application, and human resources they need to compete effectively," said Dana Gardner, Research Director, Messaging and Directory Services, at Aberdeen Group in Boston. "A common approach to provisioning inputs, like the ADPr specification, will enable end-users, vendors, and service partners to streamline the access of provisioning tools and directories in general. That can only help drive the availability of secure, compatible IT resources across organizational boundaries for extended e-commerce."

"By simplifying the provisioning process across the board, ADPr has the potential to save us a tremendous amount of time and money, and to dramatically enhance our efficiency," added Jeff Oram, CIO of TSR Wireless, the largest messaging retailer in America. "With ADPr, we can instantly connect any new user - whether it be an employee, field representative, or customer - to all the necessary business systems and applications."

"As a valued Check Point OPSEC Alliance partner, we applaud Business Layers' efforts in leading the industry with the open specification ADPr for eProvisioning," explained Bradley Brown, Director of Business Development, Check Point Software Technologies. "Check Point has always recognized the value of open standards as demonstrated via the OPSEC Alliance, which sets the standard for open and integrated Internet security."

"The ADPr specification offers a flexible framework that will greatly enhance our ability to support our customers as they build their Internet infrastructures," said Scott Silk, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for ePresence, Inc. "By promoting the development of eProvision-enabled solutions, ADPr can enable our customers to deploy a broad range of IT solutions that facilitate personalized relationships with customers, business partners and employees."

"The mapping of business policies to IT activities is the major business efficiency problem today," added Michael Chacon, Global e-Infrastructure Practice Manager of Netigy Corporation. "ADPr is a great step forward in applying existing XML and LDAP standards to a specification that facilitates the allocation of resources and fosters interoperability between differing systems."

"We believe ADPr could do for the eProvisioning market what SNMP did for the network management market. It will help vendors and customers move away from proprietary connectors and towards standards-based systems. Today's Net economy offers much greater opportunities when everyone is working toward the same goal: open standards," explained Winston Bumpus, Novell's Director of Standards. "At Novell, we applaud Business Layers' efforts. We believe that open standards like the ADPr are good for the marketplace in general and Novell's customers in particular."

Based on Business Layers' advanced eProvisioning software, used by customers around the world, the ADPr specification has already undergone significant development. Business Layers will continue to work with various industry leaders to refine the new specification and submit it to OASIS, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards. The DTD, schemas, and documents will be available at www.ADPr-spec.com and www.eprovision.com . Both sites feature additional resources, such as code samples and test suites. For more information, contact Business Layers at 877-552-9377.

About Business Layers, Inc.

Business Layers is a leading developer of eProvisioning solutions that help organizations implement a core part of their Internet infrastructure. Business Layers' award-winning eProvision Day One software helps organizations radically improve people's Time-to-Productivity by securely automating the process of allocating IT resources to business partners and employees. eProvision Day One has received the 'Category Breaker' award for Applications by Network World magazine, and was recently awarded the Electronic Messaging Association's (EMA) Best of Show award at the Spring 2000 event.

Business Layers investors include Canaan Partners, Novell, Garage.com, Gemini Capital, Formula Ventures, Israel Seed Partners, Ascent Venture Partners, and private investors. With offices throughout North America and Europe, Business Layers is headquartered in Rochelle Park, NJ, and operates engineering facilities in Israel. For more information, contact Business Layers at 877-552-9377, or access the company on the web at http://www.businesslayers.com.

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See: "Active Digital Profile."

SEARCH Advanced Search ABOUT Site Map CP RSS Channel Contact Us Sponsoring CP About Our Sponsors NEWS Cover Stories Articles & Papers Press Releases CORE STANDARDS XML SGML Schemas XSL/XSLT/XPath XLink XML Query CSS SVG TECHNOLOGY REPORTS XML Applications General Apps Government Apps Academic Apps EVENTS LIBRARY Introductions FAQs Bibliography Technology and Society Semantics Tech Topics Software Related Standards Historic	Active Digital Profile Business Layers Leads Effort to Develop First XML-Based eProvisioning Specification Check Point Software Technologies, ePresence, Netigy, Novell and Other Leading Companies Applaud Proposed Active Digital Profile (ADPr) Specification ROCHELLE PARK, NJ. November 28, 2000. Business Layers, the company that first defined eProvisioning to help organizations map business activities onto their digital infrastructures, is now leading the effort to make a common XML-based eProvisioning specification available industry-wide. Together with leading industry partners, Business Layers will deliver the Active Digital Profile (ADPr) specification, which leverages the company's expertise in developing digital profile-based eProvisioning software. ADPr is an XML-based schema designed to provide a vendor- and platform-independent exchange of provisioning information, offering the first universal specification to securely allocate and deploy IT applications, devices, systems, and services to employees, business partners, and customers. Companies that have commended this proposed specification include Check Point Software Technologies, Ltd., ePresence, Inc., Netigy, and Novell. "As companies continuously integrate new IT capabilities and processes, provisioning employees, customers, and business partners has become an increasingly difficult task. Many systems use different and incompatible methods to provision resources, and often do not work equally well across intranets, extranets, and the Internet," explained Adrian Viego, Chief Technology Officer of Business Layers. "The ADPr specification is designed to address these issues, offering a broad solution to automate the allocation of resources to users across multiple systems." ADPr allows multiple systems to exchange a complete set of provisioning information - including the action to be taken, the data required to perform the action, authentication and authorization information about the requestor, the relationship between the systems, and any other context that defines the environment of the request. The specification provides for the industry-wide development of eProvision-enabled solutions that cover the gamut from business processes to IT resource allocation. Organizations using these solutions can dramatically reduce the time, cost, and effort typically associated with allocating resources to employees, customers, and business partners. "Business Layers has developed its products aggressively to better serve the market for directory provisioning. Such eProvisioning capabilities help organizations optimize open access to the systems, application, and human resources they need to compete effectively," said Dana Gardner, Research Director, Messaging and Directory Services, at Aberdeen Group in Boston. "A common approach to provisioning inputs, like the ADPr specification, will enable end-users, vendors, and service partners to streamline the access of provisioning tools and directories in general. That can only help drive the availability of secure, compatible IT resources across organizational boundaries for extended e-commerce." "By simplifying the provisioning process across the board, ADPr has the potential to save us a tremendous amount of time and money, and to dramatically enhance our efficiency," added Jeff Oram, CIO of TSR Wireless, the largest messaging retailer in America. "With ADPr, we can instantly connect any new user - whether it be an employee, field representative, or customer - to all the necessary business systems and applications." "As a valued Check Point OPSEC Alliance partner, we applaud Business Layers' efforts in leading the industry with the open specification ADPr for eProvisioning," explained Bradley Brown, Director of Business Development, Check Point Software Technologies. "Check Point has always recognized the value of open standards as demonstrated via the OPSEC Alliance, which sets the standard for open and integrated Internet security." "The ADPr specification offers a flexible framework that will greatly enhance our ability to support our customers as they build their Internet infrastructures," said Scott Silk, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development for ePresence, Inc. "By promoting the development of eProvision-enabled solutions, ADPr can enable our customers to deploy a broad range of IT solutions that facilitate personalized relationships with customers, business partners and employees." "The mapping of business policies to IT activities is the major business efficiency problem today," added Michael Chacon, Global e-Infrastructure Practice Manager of Netigy Corporation. "ADPr is a great step forward in applying existing XML and LDAP standards to a specification that facilitates the allocation of resources and fosters interoperability between differing systems." "We believe ADPr could do for the eProvisioning market what SNMP did for the network management market. It will help vendors and customers move away from proprietary connectors and towards standards-based systems. Today's Net economy offers much greater opportunities when everyone is working toward the same goal: open standards," explained Winston Bumpus, Novell's Director of Standards. "At Novell, we applaud Business Layers' efforts. We believe that open standards like the ADPr are good for the marketplace in general and Novell's customers in particular." Based on Business Layers' advanced eProvisioning software, used by customers around the world, the ADPr specification has already undergone significant development. Business Layers will continue to work with various industry leaders to refine the new specification and submit it to OASIS, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards. The DTD, schemas, and documents will be available at www.ADPr-spec.com and www.eprovision.com . Both sites feature additional resources, such as code samples and test suites. For more information, contact Business Layers at 877-552-9377. About Business Layers, Inc. Business Layers is a leading developer of eProvisioning solutions that help organizations implement a core part of their Internet infrastructure. Business Layers' award-winning eProvision Day One software helps organizations radically improve people's Time-to-Productivity by securely automating the process of allocating IT resources to business partners and employees. eProvision Day One has received the 'Category Breaker' award for Applications by Network World magazine, and was recently awarded the Electronic Messaging Association's (EMA) Best of Show award at the Spring 2000 event. Business Layers investors include Canaan Partners, Novell, Garage.com, Gemini Capital, Formula Ventures, Israel Seed Partners, Ascent Venture Partners, and private investors. With offices throughout North America and Europe, Business Layers is headquartered in Rochelle Park, NJ, and operates engineering facilities in Israel. For more information, contact Business Layers at 877-552-9377, or access the company on the web at http://www.businesslayers.com. Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See: "Active Digital Profile."