BDXR Actors

Work in Progress. For now - a subset of 'Terminology', plus others.

Goals

1. Identify all the different Actors referred to in different Use Cases

2. Definitions here and/or Use Cases specify the relationships between Actors

3. Start with a comprehensive list of terms, then normalize.

Identity issuer: Issuer of an identity used by an organization, which issuer may or (more likely) may not have taken any action to participate in this proposed architecture (e.g. a user email issued on a specific domain, a user-specific domain issued through a registrar, a national or global organization id scheme (DUNS etc));
Metadata Service Locator: a registry or lookup service relating to one or more such identity schema (who may or may not also publish metadata);
“Community Root”: (e.g. PEPPOL) a governing entity for a community which, inter alia, aggregates service locator records for all users within a specific, functional/geographical community.
“Global Root”: as with DNS, a single, centralized root for the propagation of metadata service records across. (Or, possibly, one for each identity schema, possibly operated under contract to the issuer of the corresponding identities).

Access Point: PEPPOL terminology for "gateway". The name "Access Point" refers to the gateway being the point where a trading partner or connecting network accesses the PEPPOL infrastructure.
Cloud: In BDXR terminology refers to any communications network or infrastructure.
Community: A group of individual parties who are capable of exchanging business documents, either by being connected to the same service (i.e. a three-corner architecture) or by the use of intermediaries connected in a four-cornered infrastructure.
Corner 1: Refers to the trading partner or connecting domain that is sending a business document through a four-cornered infrastructure.
Corner 2: Refers to the gateway of the sending party or domain in a four-cornered architecture, i.e. the gateway acting as intermediary for Corner 1.
Corner 3: Refers to the gateway of the receiving party or domain in a four-cornered architecture, i.e. the gateway acting as intermediary for Corner 4.
Corner 4: Refers to the trading partner or connecting domain that is receiving a business document sent through a four-cornered infrastructure.
Domain: A domain in BDXR refers to any community whose members are connected through a shared system and may interact with others across domains.
e-CODEX: A Large Scale Pilot established to improve the cross-border access of citizens and businesses to legal means in Europe as well as to improve the interoperability between legal authorities within the EU.
http://www.e-codex.eu
End-user: The user/customer of a service provider.
Gateway: A gateway is what connects trading partners and domains together in a four-cornered infrastructure. Corner 2 is the gateway of corner 1, and corner 3 is the gateway of corner 4.

As is in the definition, a gateway always has two sides: One side that connects to other gateways in the infrastructure (i.e. connecting corner 2 to corner 3), and one side that connects to a trading partner or connecting domain (connecting corner 2 to corner 1, and corner 3 to corner 4). The side of a gateway that connects to other gateways within the four-cornered infrastructure must always follow agreed standards and specifications. The side of the gateway that connects with the trading partner or connecting domain is generally not standardized, though there are environments where some level of standardization is needed (e.g. to support encrypted or digitally signed business documents, end-to-end evidence of delivery etc.).
Large Scale Pilot: ICT projects to enhance pan-European interoperability within specific areas involving public administration. Large Scale Pilots (or LSPs) are run by European Union member states with support and co-funding from the European Commission.
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/egovernment/lsp/index_en.htm
LSP: Abbreviation for "Large Scale Pilot".
Organization: Potentially automated system.
Participant: In PEPPOL terminology, a participant is an organization or legal entity that connects to the PEPPOL infrastructure through an Access Point in order to exchange business documents with other participants. Participants are the originators and final destinations of business documents. Basically "trading partners".
PEPPOL: Pan-European Public Procurement Online. A Large Scale Pilot established to enable pan-European interoperability for public procurement. The PEPPOL infrastructure uses a four-cornered architecture to connect domains (private service providers and national public infrastructures).
http://www.peppol.eu
Person: Not entirely automated system entity!
Service Metadata Locator: A common DNS registry in a BDXR architecture allowing gateways to locate metadata services of connected trading partners.
Service Metadata Publisher: A Service Metadata Publisher (or SMP) provides a standardized interface where gateways in a BDXR architecture can retrieve specific metadata about a connected trading partner and about the trading partner's gateway service. The term "metadata" is here used in its broadest and most general meaning, and metadata may contain information about anything from supported document types and business processes to specific information about transport protocols and technical endpoint addresses.
Service provider: The basic function of a service provider is to act as enabler and intermediary (or shared service) for trading partners who are exchanging business documents. A service provider operates the shared service used between trading partners in three-cornered architectures and the gateway service used in four-cornered architectures.
SML: Abbreviation for "Service Metadata Locator".
SMLP: Service Metadata Locator and Publisher. A multilayered capabilities and services discovery model involving Service Metadata Locators and Service Metadata Publishers.
SMP: Abbreviation for "Service Metadata Publisher".
Trading partner: A trading partner is an organization or legal entity that has a business relation with one or more other trading partners, and as part of their business relation needs to exchange business documents. Trading partners may exchange business documents through bilaterally agreed upon standards in a peer-to-peer model, through the use of a shared service in a three-corner model, or through gateway services in a four-corner model.