Dutch Ministry delivers ebMS/ebXML-based e-government with Mule ESB

The Challenge: Enabling more efficient e-government with ebMS and ebXML

In 2010, the national government of the Netherlands began implementing a new standard for working with suppliers.  Traditionally, suppliers had provided paper invoices for services rendered to the government.  However, no system for electronic invoicing beyond ad hoc emailing of the same paper forms used in the past had yet emerged across the government.  As the Netherlands began undertaking e-government initiatives to achieve efficiencies and better serve its stakeholders, e-invoicing became an obvious area for improvement.

As part of its e-government program, the Netherlands government designed Digipoort, a system for the rapid, reliable and secure exchange of information between government agencies and private parties involved with the government. The Digipoort system was based on a particular specification of ebMS and ebXML, a family of XML based standards sponsored by the United Nations Centre for Trade facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) and Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS).  ebXML provides an open, XML-based infrastructure that enables the global use of electronic business information in an interoperable, secure, and consistent manner by all trading partners.  Digipoort would be used for many types of communications with the government, for example transmitting customs information for shipments received between importers and the customs service.  It would also provide a way for suppliers to electronically invoice any government ministry with which it conducted business.  

With the introduction of Digipoort all government suppliers were to begin submit invoices in Universal Business Language (UBL) or HR-XML format to the central Digipoort system.  All ministries must connect to this single Digipoort gateway to receive their invoices.  The government’s objective was for 10% of all invoices to be received electronically by the end of 2010 with more to follow thereafter.  By receiving and processing incoming invoices electronically the government expects to reduce costs and pass that on to constituents by easing the tax and premium burden for the government and the business community.  Each ministry of the government was given autonomy to implement their own connector to the Digipoort system using whichever technology they preferred.

Ministerie van Economische Zaken, the Netherlands Department of Economic Affairs was one of the ministries impacted by the introduction of Digipoort.  The ministry is tasked with issues of sustainability, innovation, international business and cooperation.  In addition to the central ministry needs, Agentschap NL, the department that regulates energy and environment affairs, encourages innovation, and manages the patent office, needed to comply as well.  While both needed to integrate with Digipoort, each had slightly different systems and requirements.  Due to the inclusion of innovation as part of its central mission, Agentschap NL took the lead on the entire project for both stakeholders and contracted with Sierd Westerfield of Capgemini to implement e-Invoicing.   He managed the process from start to finish.

The Solution: Rapidly integrating ebMS

In October of 2010 Agentschap NL contacted Ordina Clockwork to help implement this Digipoort project on behalf of Ministerie van Economische Zaken. 

“We were on a very tight timeline” said Edwin Luinstra Lead Developer for Ordina Clockwork.  “While Clockwork had experience with Mule, ebXML and ebMS, the Digipoort specification was relatively new and we had just a few months to meet the ministry’s legal mandate.” 

Different departments within the government were evaluating various solutions to address the Digipoort requirements.  Several departments had selected commercial solutions from providers such as Oracle.  Economische Zaken had evaluated Microsoft Biztalk as a possible solution, but found it had no suitable out-of-the-box ebMS connector, and purchasing and implementing the third party solutions on the market would be expensive and require significant additional development.  Oracle and Sun service bus products were also considered as was the possibility of doing a point-to-point integration with their SAP system.

Both Agentscap NL and Minisitrie van Economische Zaken had a long-standing preference for open standards and particularly open source software.  This led to a evaluation of Open Source alternatives for the Digipoort project.  After doing substantial research, including consultation with analyst firms, Agentschap NL determined Mule was the best open source alternative for the project.  After a more in depth evaluation of Mule it was chosen as the solution for integrating with the Digipoort. 

“As a government agency tasked with innovation, open source is part of our DNA.  We’re always looking to maximize flexibility and openness while reducing costs and avoiding vendor lock-in.  As we investigated further we found Mule to be one of the most mature ESB products on the market.   It quickly became the obvious choice.” said Sierd Westerfield (Capgemini), Project Manager for Ministrie van Economische Zaken and Angentschap NL.

Beginning in October, Ordina Clockwork worked with Economische Zaken to understand the design for the desired solution and configure the necessary integrations.  The Digipoort would supply invoices to Mule via an ebMS connector.  The messages would then be validated, and extra metadata added via a Mule ESB enricher.  Finally the invoices would then route to existing backends, for example their existing financial system.  The full solution would support a highly diverse set of systems each with their own protocols.  This meant integration via CXF SOAP, SMTP, POP3/IMAP, JDBC, FTP, JCO and HTTP.  Mule has existing out-of-the-box support for all of these technologies.  By the end of the month all of these systems were fully integrated with Mule.

During November, in just under one month, Ordina Clockwork extended and enhanced the existing Mule CXF SOAP connector to develop a specialized Digipoort connector.  “Two of the advantages of Mule are how easy it is to develop with, and how open it is.  We had a very short timeline and no prebuilt connector for the Digipoort specification, but in just over a month start to finish I was able to build the connector.   Because of the openness of Mule and the way it is designed, it is easy to extend Mule with new functionality” said Luinstra.

While multiple departments were implementing integrations with the Digipoort, when the Digipoort went into production in January 2011, Economische Zaken was the first and only one ready to take advantage of it. It managed to accomplish this well below the original budget that had been allocated.  “We were very happy with what Mule delivered.  It provided an impressively quick time to delivery while coming in at a much lower total cost of ownership than the alternatives” said Westerfield.

When the Mule-based ebXML solution was put into production, it immediately became an important piece of Economische Zaken’s business infrastructure.    Timely support was required in case of problems.  For this reason, Economische Zaken chose to use Mule ESB Enterprise Edition from MuleSoft.  This enterprise-class version of Mule gives them access to Mule ESB Management Console, a powerful set of performance monitoring, diagnostics and tuning, deployment, and runtime management capabilities, backed by MuleSoft’s industry-leading customer support. 

“The project has been quite smooth” said Westerfield “but we value the peace of mind that goes with knowing we have access to skilled engineers who built Mule.  Our communication with Mulesoft has been superb.”

While the e-invoicing project was underway, the economics ministry was re-organized into a new Ministerie van Economische Zaken, Landbouw en Innovatie. This added responsibilities for agriculture, natural resources and food quality to the ministry’s portfolio.  Agentschap NL is evaluating opportunities to leverage Mule to ease this integration.  One project being evaluated would extend the Mule-based ebMS solution with new service desk capabilities in order to support these newly added divisions as well.  In addition, the merger left the new ministry with multiple SAP and Oracle ERP systems.  A standardization project is underway and once a final selection of an ERP vendor is made, Mule may be integrated with this system as well.

The Digipoort project was the first in which Economische Zaken had used an enterprise service bus to integrate applications.  In the past, most integrations were done point-to-point which made them difficult to maintain.  While an enterprise service bus had long been planned, the high investments and complicated projects required by many traditional ESB vendors had kept such an architecture from getting beyond the planning stages.  Mule proved much more lightweight and delivered immediate value during the Digipoort project.  With Mule now deployed, Economische Zaken and Agentschap NL have the ESB they’ve long wanted and can extend it as new applications are developed in the future.  Several new integrations with registries run by other branches of the government are already being considered.

Said Westerfield  “The e-invoicing project showed us how rapidly we could role out new services with Mule.  We’re thrilled at how well the project has gone.  Mule will definitely be our first choice for future integrations.” 

About Capgemini

Capgemini is one of the world’s foremost providers of consulting, technology and outsourcingservices.  The international Capgemini Group has offices in more than thirty countries and employs over 100,000 people worldwide.   Capgemini’s knowledge of e-Government and opensource software has been key to the success of this project.

About Ordina Clockwork

Clockwork is the full service internet company of Ordina.  Starting with a concept and ending with support on web applications and websites Clockwork is able the offer everything a customer needs.  Clockwork also has an Integration team to address the increasing integration needs of Clockwork customers.