The Information Technology Markup Language is "a set of specifications of protocols, message formats and best practices in the Application Service Provider (ASP) and ASP aggregation market to provide seamless integration of partners and business processes."
[January 31, 2001] In connection with the OASIS technical committee on Security Services, Jamcracker Inc. presented draft documents for an Information Technology Markup Language (ITML). The two draft documents are said to "contain much of Jamcracker's collective thoughts on session management and assertions associated therewith..." The Information Technology Markup Language "is a set of specifications of protocols, message formats and best practices in the ASP and ASP aggregation market to provide seamless integration of partners and business processes. It is based on open standards, particularly XML and HTTP. It also uses emerging standards, particularly SOAP and XML Schema." The ITML Message And Protocol Specification Working Draft [11/22/00. Version: 0.8], as a technical specification intended for developers and architects, "provides a framework for specific interactions to occur between Jamcracker and an ASP. An example interaction is a User Provisioning request. Each set of interactions is known as an ITML Best Practice. This document is a companion document to each Best Practice specification. This specification describes the following key decisions: (1) XML Schema is the type specification language, (2) message format is SOAP, (3) a SOAP error structure, (4) a set of protocol errors, (5) encoding rules for graphs of data, (6) encoding rules for methods, (7) namespaces standards in messages, (8) multi-part message encoding, and (9) HTTP Binding including Authentication." The ITML Distributed Session Management Specification Working Draft [01/30/01. Version: 0.5] "provides a framework for specific interactions around session management to occur between Jamcracker and a partner. A typical use of this is for the synchronization of a single sign-on assertion. It addresses the needs of single sign-on, single sign-off, single time-out, and single maintain session. This specification describes the following key decisions: (1) ITML Message and Protocol is the transmission format, (2) Jamcracker pulls state changes from ASPs, (3) Jamcracker can pull from many, (4) Times of actions on state changes are deltas from last pull, not absolute, and (5) The entire session for a given user is sent for each request." On these draft documents, see the URLs with notes/caveats in "Jamcracker submits ITML Session Management for review by OASIS Security Services TC" (David Orchard, 2001-01-31).
ITML Account Provisioning Specification for Internet Business. On February 15, 2001, The Internet Business Services Initiative (IBSi), an industry association promoting the development and use of Web-native business solutions, announced it has "launched a 'proof-of-concept' implementation of its first standard to streamline interoperability among Internet Business Services. The new provisioning specification, slated for release to the general industry in March, will improve the customer experience by allowing secure account information to be shared among services. The current ITML provisioning specification is based on an industry-standard XML protocol for provisioning users and companies across multiple Internet business services and integration platforms. It applies proven technology compatible with the IBS model and also supports secure business practices. The specification was proposed by Jamcracker, an IBSi member and an aggregator of Web-based services, and evolved with the combined efforts of the IBSi technical working group. The 'proof-of-concept' implementation is being managed by IBSi members OpenAir.com and Jamcracker, and the specification has been released to members for their comment. The final recommendation will be published for the general industry after the testing phase and with the approval of the IBSi membership, expected by the end of March [2001]... The IBSi ITML Provisioning Specification defines secure interoperability standards for sharing user data among Web-based business-to-business services so that customers will not have to enter the same information every time they subscribe to a new service or change their user-permissions levels. It is an important step toward enhancing the integration among online software companies The IBSi technical working group is focusing on interoperability because service-to-service integration offers significant business and economic advantages to online software suppliers. With the IBS model, a supplier only has to write code once to integrate with another service and the added functionality is immediately available to all customers using the software. With traditional or packaged software, code must be written and customized for each customer, often resulting in time-consuming and costly IT projects..."
ITML as a Jamcracker project:
- Overview: "... key components of Jamcracker's IT solutions [include] a reliable, comprehensive and scalable platform based on Information Technology Markup Language (ITML) technology an extension of XML..."
- October 19, 2000 story: "Jamcracker offers small to medium-sized businesses web-based applications and services in the business services, enterprise-wide services and core services categories. These services are built and managed by independent ASPs including OpenAir.com, BizTone, Icarian, Critical Path, MyCIO, webEx, diCarta, United Messaging and Employease...The interoperability of applications on the Jamcracker platform is achieved through the use of a new flavor of XML called ITML (information technology markup language) to enable the quick integration of partner services into the Jamcracker platform when the required XML DTDs (document type definitions) are not available..."
- News ASP/Solaris: "Take JamCracker Inc. in Sunnyvale, Calif. Next week it will reveal its initial list of ASP partners using its proposed Information Technology Markup Language (ITML) as an open standard for ASP software integration. JamCracker's founder, K. B. Chandrasekhar, says ITML will let IT managers stitch together application portfolios for their businesses from a program menu on JamCracker's, or, conceivably, a competitor's ASP portal. JamCracker's technology is built on Solaris and Java..."
- JamCracker FAQ document: "[How does the Jamcracker platform operate?] The Jamcracker platform is a reliable, comprehensive, secure and scalable platform based on high-availability, security, data warehousing and XML (extensible markup language) technologies. Also Jamcracker has created a new flavor of XML called ITML (information technology markup language) to enable the quick integration of partner services into the Jamcracker platform when the required XML DTDs (document type definitions) are not available. To ensure system reliability, Jamcracker uses a highly available configuration with proactive monitoring tools. Jamcracker commits to 99% availability for its platform. [Why did you develop ITML when there are industry standards?] Jamcracker is committed to industry standards and integration. We first use industry available standards to assist with integration. For areas where standards are not readily available, we fill the gaps with ITML."
References:
[March 03, 2001] ITML Provisioning Specification. Working Draft. Last Updated: 02/19/2001. Version: 0.82. 28 pages. Edited by David Orchard. "ITML -- the Information Technology Markup Language -- is a set of specifications of protocols, message formats and best practices in the ASP and ASP aggregation market to provide seamless integration of partners and business processes. It is based upon open-standards, particularly XML and HTTP. It is an implementation of the ITML Messaging and Protocol Specification. ITML provisioning specifies a set of protocols and documents that Jamcracker and its partners exchange that provides for secure and reliable user and company information synchronization. Users, companies, services for users, and services for companies can be added, modified, disabled, enabled or deleted across the set of Jamcracker and it's partners. Jamcracker or its partners can create UserID, Password, and CompanyID information in the provisioning conversations. This specification describes the following key decisions: (1) use cases; (2) requirements; (3) information model including data model and state transitions; (4) provisioning requests schemas and samples; (5) provisioning responses schemas and samples including errors; (6) provisioning namespace. This specification provides a framework for a one way data transfer between Jamcracker and the partner. Partners that wish to act in roles other than recipient of data will use a different specification than this." See the ITML Provisioning Specification .ZIP file.
ITML Message And Protocol Specification Working Draft. Edited by David Orchard. 11/22/00. Version: 0.8. [ITML Messaging And Protocol2000-11-22.doc] See also HTML (partial/unofficial, zipped .DOC). See notes/caveats in "Jamcracker submits ITML Session Management for review by OASIS Security Services TC" (David Orchard, 2001-01-31). "This document provides a framework for specific interactions to occur between Jamcracker and an ASP. An example interaction is a User Provisioning request. Each set of interactions is known as an ITML Best Practice. This document is a companion document to each Best Practice specification. This specification describes the following key decisions: (1) XML Schema is the type specification language; (2) message format is SOAP; (3) a SOAP error structure; (4) a set of protocol errors; (5) encoding rules for graphs of data; (6)encoding rules for methods; (7)namespaces standards in messages; (8) multi-part message encoding; (9) HTTP Binding including Authentication."
ITML Distributed Session Management Specification Working Draft. Edited by David Orchard, David Tarrell,and Gilbert Pilz. Last Updated: 01/30/01. Version: 0.5 [ITML Session Management.doc] See also HTML (partial/unofficial, zipped .DOC) See notes/caveats in "Jamcracker submits ITML Session Management for review by OASIS Security Services TC" (David Orchard, 2001-01-31) "This document provides a framework for specific interactions around session management to occur between Jamcracker and a partner. A typical use of this is for the synchronization of a single sign-on assertion. It addresses the needs of single sign-on, single sign-off, single time-out, and single maintain session. This specification describes the following key decisions: (1) ITML Message and Protocol is the transmission format; (2) Jamcracker pulls state changes from ASPs; (3) Jamcracker can pull from many; (4) Times of actions on state changes are deltas from last pull, not absolute; (5) The entire session for a given user is sent for each request... ITML [Information Technology Markup Language] is a set of specifications of protocols, message formats and best practices in the ASP and ASP aggregation market to provide seamless integration of partners and business processes. It is based on open standards, particularly XML and HTTP. It also uses emerging standards, particularly SOAP and XML Schema."
[March 21, 2001] ITML Provisioning Overview. By David Orchard, Jamcracker Standards Architect. 22 pages. 3/21/01. [cache]
[April 12, 2001] Jamcracker Position Paper submitted to the W3C Web Services Workshop. By David Orchard (Jamcracker). April 11-12, 2001. 5 pages. Executive Summary: "This paper details Jamcracker's position on the directions that the W3C should embark on with respect to various XML, Web and Web Services technologies and processes. Web Services is a concept and technology set that has rapidly grabbed the imagination of users, vendors and customers. At the core of it, Web Services allows for autonomous communications between applications using the same infrastructure that the Web is built on. The lack of mention of a particular technology or process does not imply Jamcracker's support or lack thereof, rather that we choose to highlight certain aspects over others. We expect that many position papers will be submitted on specific solutions for service description, service discovery, security, reliable messaging, transactions, etc. We choose to focus on a few key areas that we encounter as a platform provider." [cache]
[February 15, 2001] "First IBSi Standard for Integrating Web Applications in Final Testing Toward Q1 Release. Account Provisioning Specification for Internet Business Services Will Improve Interoperability Among Software Services." [source]
