DTI deal uses new open standard

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is working with the oil and gas industry to construct one of the UK's first open standards 'Yellow Pages' using web services technology.

Companies such as Shell, BP and Exxon will provide the government with regular information on their activities, such as environmental data and production reports. Information stored in the companies' IT systems are reproduced on paper and sent to the DTI's oil and gas directorate, where they are stored for later use.

The aim of the joint initiative is to automate these reports, with the DTI retrieving data directly from systems using web services.

"We are looking at web services to help us achieve a further advance in the standardised and automated exchange of data and business documents," said Stewart Robinson, director of IT and data services at the DTI.

At the heart of the project will be a web services directory built using the universal description, discovery and integration (UDDI) 'Yellow Pages' standard.

The DTI will be able to request data when it is needed, with the UDDI registry directing its applications to the oil firms. It will use the web services description language standard to allow its internal legacy systems to connect to the central directory.