ORLANDO | Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG) today announced that it will develop an open standard through which any two systems used within the hotel industry can exchange any mutually agreed data. Based primarily on prior HTNG work, initial versions of the standard should be available by late summer.
“Today, structured XML-based messages are a preferred approach for many system interfaces,” said Douglas Rice, Executive Vice President and CEO of HTNG. However, there can be significant barriers to their rapid adoption, especially by legacy systems. The HTNG Open Data eXchange initiative – known as ‘ODX’ for short – will allow older technology products to achieve some of the benefits of web services and TCP/IP networking quickly, without the need for major rearchitecting of applications.” “ODX will improve the reliability of any interface, and it also enables health monitoring using standard tools offered by a variety of technology providers,” continued Rice. “Equally important, it significantly reduces the development ‘plumbing’ effort required just to establish basic connectivity between any two systems.” Migration to ODX will enable development organizations that are just starting out with web services to gain experience with a simple implementation, as well as to realize some immediate benefits. Where appropriate, vendors can continue to the next step, migrating to full XML web-service interfaces over time. The HTNG Open Data eXchange initiative will be released by HTNG in phases, starting this summer with a web service for the exchange of unstructured information. Over time, the specification will add structured definitions and XML schemas to support the exchange of common operational, financial, and statistical data concepts. In many cases, these will be adopted from past or future HTNG workgroup efforts, such as the Back Office Integration specification currently under development within the HTNG Property Web Services workgroup. For statistical data, ODX will support the exchange using industry-standard definitions, such as those included in the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry. HTNG will also propose new and revised messages, as appropriate, to the OpenTravel Alliance specification, to help ensure continued consistency between OpenTravel and HTNG messages. Meeting Unfilled Needs HTNG’s Property Web Services Solution workgroup created the ODX initiative in order to serve two short-term needs that had been identified by many hotel companies and vendors:
Over time, HTNG will also define schemas for the transfer of standardized data, which can be used where statistical, operational, or financial data needs to be exchanged between systems, but where a fully functional interface is not required. Significant work in this area is already being undertaken by the Back Office Integration team of the HTNG Property Web Services workgroup, with respect to standardized definitions of financial and operational statistics. A library of statistical definitions will be published, and HTNG members will be invited to propose additions or extensions to the library when they need to transfer information that was not previously defined within the library.
Contact
Katie Mazzuca
Senior Director of Marketing and Events
United States - Schaumburg, Phone: +1 312 690-5034
Fax: +1 703 814 8555
Email: katie.mazzuca@htng.org
Organization
Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG) - AHLA
www.ahla.com/htng
1250 Eye Street N.W., Suite 1100
USA
- Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 1 202 289 3100
Email: ewilson@ahla.com
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