Implementing WebSphere Business Integration Express for Item Synchronization

Chapter 1. UCCnet 5

standards-compliance verification, and synchronization of product information. It

also provides registry and lifecycle management of synchronized products, user

locations, and user trade capabilities.

UCCnet has been developed to provide an essential backbone that links trade

exchange members, peer-to-peer partners, industry-driven e-marketplaces, and

alliance partners to one open and seamless repository of information.

Today approximately 1500 retail and supplier companies currently subscribe to

UCCnet, including:

򐂰 Approximately 30 national and international and smaller regional retailers

򐂰 Approximately 1470 large and small suppliers

1.3 Some important terms

Before we move on, it is worth taking the time to explain some of the key terms

that are used by UCCnet and are important for our item synchronization solution.

We need to be familiar with these terms and what they represent to understand

the entire item synchronization process.

1.3.1 GLOBALregistry and Item Registry

The UCCnet GLOBALregistry provides for registration and storage of all item

information, including attributes of that item. Additionally, it is a repository of

standards-compliant data. Each item will be checked for strict adherence to the

global standards established by EAN.UCC.

The GLOBALregistry can almost be thought of as a

thin-registry of EAN.UCC

standards-compliant item data with up to 35 defined attributes.

The Item Registry is a full registry of standards-compliant item data with up to

151 trade item attributes (35 of which are stored in the GLOBALregistry).

Important Note: First, we need to make a distinction here between UCCnet

and UCCnet Services. UCCnet is the organization and UCCnet Services the

product/service. When we are sending and receiving messages, it is to/from

UCCnet Services.

We refer to all of the sending and receiving of messages in this redbook as

to/from UCCnet for the sake of brevity only.

6 Implementing WebSphere BI Express for Item Synchronization

1.3.2 Global Location Number (GLN)

This is a globally unique (13 digit) number. It is the global standard used by

UCCnet and identifies a user to UCCnet based on physical locations, legal

entities, and functional entities, as follows:

򐂰 A physical location is something such as a store location, a warehouse or

distribution point, a plant, and so on.

򐂰 A legal entity can be a company or a subsidiary or division of a company.

򐂰 A functional entity can be something such as a business unit or department

within a legal entity (such as the sales department)

Companies assign GLNs on a

needs basis, that is, only business units or

departments within an organization that require one will have one--not

necessarily all departments.

What makes a GLN?

Of the 13 digits that make up a GLN, digits 1 to 12 are the EAN.UCC company

prefix with a location reference and the 13th digit is a check digit (created using a

modulus 10 calculation).

Most companies have a single UCC company prefix, but some companies may

have more than one.

An EAN.UCC company prefix is normally created by adding a leading 0 to a UCC

company prefix.

The location reference is allocated by the

owner of the EAN.UCC company prefix

to uniquely identify to them, a location within the company.

For the use in our redbook scenario, we have GLNs for the ITSO that contain

location references to one of the IBM EAN.UCC company prefixes. See

Figure 1-1 on page 7 for an example.

Important: The GLNs that you see in this redbook were created for the sole

use of this redbook project and the redbook team and, as such, may not be

used for any other purpose. When testing your solution with UCCnet, please

ensure that you substitute your own company GLN.