Connecting Buyers and Sellers With a Registry

A UDDI registry can help set up automated business-to-business relationships. The diagram shows how this could work for transactions between two companies, a buyer (left), and a seller (right). An employee at the buyer enters an approved purchase order to send to the seller (1). The buyer’s purchasing application looks up the seller by name in the UDDI registry (2) and loads the seller’s business information (e.g., full name, business address, national tax identity number, industry and product classification information) into a new vendor record. The purchasing application then searches the seller’s technical information (3) for a service that will accept the purchase order through one of the formats and protocols that the purchasing application supports. In this case, the application finds a compatible service. The purchasing application uses technical specifications referenced in the service’s entry to set up a connection, reformat the purchase order, and send it to the seller’s service (4).