Afilias Discovery Services

The increasing complexity of today's supply chain networks, combined with mounting regulatory and other auditing requirements (e.g. electronic pedigree (ePedigree) records that track the history of a drug's buyers and sellers on the way from the manufacturer to the consumer), has created the need for advanced technology to address key gaps in achieving end-to-end traceability. One of these challenges is the ability to identify and locate all upstream and downstream participants of a supply chain. Another challenge is allowing secure and selective sharing of data for objects being handled by these participants. Discovery Services (DS) and DS compliant offerings, such as Afilias Discovery Services (ADS) are a means to address these challenges. ADS enables traceability by providing links to providers and sources of product information along one or more supply chains. This gives track and trace applications as well as disparate product lifecycle information systems the ability to gather complete information about an individual physical object's movement through the supply chain.

ADS solves these key challenges by providing a secure mechanism for companies with or without prior business relationships to "track and trace" business event data, as well as selectively share information. Regardless of the business application software that captured the event data, access to shared information ensures that competitive data stays secure. ADS is a hosted registry and lookup service that is also highly scalable, enabling numerous supply chain partners across multiple supply chains to "track and trace" and securely exchange historical events that occurred throughout the life cycle of an RFID tag or device.

Benefits of Afilias Discovery Service:

• Provides the entire sequence of historical events associated with a product and allows dynamic real-time updates. This is useful for the creation of audit trails for compliance or other purposes.
• Provides customizable and granular security of data by such factors as event type, or even by supply chain partner, so that confidential and competitive data can only be seen by trusted parties.
• Supports global intercommunication between chains of Discovery Services using a standards based approach, removing the need to coordinate information sharing across a single global hierarchical network.
• Allows for selective visibility of data amongst partners which results in flexibility in the range of supply chain disclosure allowed (e.g. from full disclosure of minimally regulated commodity items to disclosure based on regulatory or other policies).

Additional information on Afilias Discovery Services can also be found in the following whitepaper:

Afilias Discovery Services: Enabling Secure, Selective Visibility in Supply Chains

Overview of implementing Afilias Discovery Services in a supply chain network Within a supply chain network, partners use their internal business applications to capture life cycle data for products and services, which includes detailed information about the events and transactions that occur during their respective business processes. This stored business event data enables partners to make business decisions within their own organizations. However, to communicate effectively with one another, need a mechanism that enables them to share relevant data in a secure and selective manner. 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 injected. The same client interface provides lookup facilities that enable authorized partners to seek referrals to more detailed information available from other partners in the supply chain. When no information is available about an object among partners in a supply chain, the ADS system can optionally query a lookup resolution service, called the Object Naming Service (ONS), to supply referrals to the original source of the object.

How ADS works

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).

ADS also provides a common database repository to store key events, providing a referral source for detailed lookups to other partners' business applications.

Users employ a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)-enabled client, based on ESDS, to interface with the ADS repository. The use of open interfaces and SOA makes ADS interoperable and easy to integrate into any supply chain operation or existing business application tracking supply chain data.

Open Standards-based

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. Afilas 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):

• ESDS Statement
• ESDS Concepts
• ESDS Commands
• ESDS Schema

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

Pilot Programs

Afilias is offering an ADS Pilot Program to companies interested in testing this new technology.. Afilias will provide a toolkit and an open testing environment based on the ESDS open protocol, which is currently in the submission process to the Internet Engineering Task Force www.IETF.org.

ADS Pilot Participant Requirements:

Organizations wishing to test the deployment of Afilias Discovery Services need to meet qualifications such as:

• Showing an intent to commercialize an RFID or other supply chain network using Afilias Discovery Services;
• Providing a unique supply chain use case scenario with commercial potential;
• Evidence of a measurable pilot program and key success factors for an ADS implementation;
• Compatibility with a related association or industry group working toward the establishment of related technology standards.

Afilias will have the following responsibility in the pilot program:

1. Provide use of the following components of the pilot infrastructure:
   1. Afilias Discovery Service
   2. Object Naming Service
2. Provide technical support with respect to the above listed components.
3. Provide a freely available toolkit for the development of a client interface with the ADS

Participants in the pilot program will have the following responsibilities:

1. Implement the ADS in the proposed pilot program;
2. Finalize the business rules for implementation no later than 30 days after approval;
3. Implement the ADS for a period of time no less than 30 days of duration;
4. Provide performance data associated with the agreed metrics to Afilias;
5. Serve as a case study for Afilias.

Applications for Pilot Programs:

Applications will be judged based on their demonstration of 1) an intent to commercialize an RFID or other supply chain network using Afilias Discovery Services; 2) a unique supply chain use case scenario with commercial potential; 3) measurable success factors for the pilot program as well as the ADS implementation; and 4) compatibility with a related association or industry group working toward the establishment of related technology standards. Applicants will be notified no later than 30 days after submitting their application as to whether they have been approved to become a “Participant.”

Please contact auto-id@afilias.info for an application or for more information on how to implement ADS in your Pilot Program

For more information:

Maged Girgis
Auto-ID Program Manager
Afilias
4141 Yonge Street, Suite 204
North York, ON M2P 2A8
Canada
V: +1.416.673.8365
F: +1.416.646.1541
mgirgis@afilias.info