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What is a VAN and what do you mean by Tier 1?
A value-added network (VAN) is a hosted-service offering that acts as an intermediary between trading partners who exchange business documents. Beyond the actual forwarding of documents, the value-added services include audit trail, security and non-repudiation. The VAN acts as a neutral third-party that guarantees that a given business document – an invoice, for example – has been successfully transmitted between trading partners ABC and XYZ at a given date and time, and certifies that said document has not been tampered with during the communication process. The Tier-1 VAN network is a group of major VANs that are fully interconnected, allowing customers of any one of them – InterTrade, for instance – to exchange business documents with a trading partner that is a customer of another VAN with the same security and auditability as if this trading partner were using the same network.
What is AS2?
AS2 stands for Application Statement 2 and was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It has also been endorsed by the Uniform Code Council (UCC) and the Global Commerce Initiative. AS2 is a specification for transporting EDI, XML or other documents over the Internet using the HTTP protocol securely and reliably. To review the AS2 technical definition by IETF RFC 4130, see: www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4130.txt
Should we use EDI or XML?
If you are implementing the B2B integration project to comply with one of your customer’s requirements, then you do not have a choice – you have to implement the standards requested by that customer. When you do have a choice, you need to make sure that you take into consideration the total picture of your B2B integration project, including trading partner on-boarding and day-to-day exception management. As stated by a recent study done by a leading analyst firm, “EDI will continue to be the primary type of B2B interaction for many years to come.” This does not mean that XML transactions have no value. As a rule of thumb, we can say that B2B integration projects targeting large populations of trading partners are better suited to EDI, while deep integration projects requiring real-time integration of a very small number of trading partners can benefit from XML exchanges. InterTrade offers B2B integration consulting services to help you make the best choices for your EDI/B2B architecture.
Should we use VAN or AS2?
Once again, if you are implementing the B2B integration project to comply with one of your customer’s requirements, then you do not have a choice – you have to implement the standards requested by that customer. When you do have a choice, don’t forget to look at all costs associated with each communication protocol. The most overlooked aspects of AS2 implementations are: initial testing costs for all new trading-partner connections, day-to-day monitoring costs for failed MDNs (Message Disposition Notifications) and recurrent management costs associated with certificate expiration dates. (The next FAQ element gives more details about additional AS2 costs.) On the other hand, AS2 provides a quasi real-time integration, while it is difficult to predict total transmission delays for VAN communications. InterTrade VAN offers a near real-time experience, but some of your trading partners may still use once-a-day or twice-a-day batches for their VAN communications.
Is it true that AS2 is free?
Sorry, there is no such thing as a free lunch. But InterTrade offers you a very interesting alternative to the high costs of managing your internal AS2 infrastructure. Do-it-yourselfers face the following: First there are AS2 software costs and annual support costs. Then you need some hardware to run the AS2 software. You also have to take into account IT experts’ fees for installing and configuring the hardware, the OS, the AS2 software, in both test and production environments. Are you still thinking AS2 is free? Sorry: we forgot to mention the management costs described in the previous FAQ element. Another important aspect of AS2 is that your AS2 box needs to “listen” on a specific port for incoming documents and therefore you have to figure the additional network management costs to manage this hole in your firewall. Finally, don’t forget that you poll transactions from your VAN mailbox when you desire but your trading partners will send you AS2 transactions when they want, which means that you may have to implement a 24/7 infrastructure for your direct AS2 communications. But there is some good news: InterTrade can provide AS2 communications to all your trading partners that require it, at a very small cost, by using their always-on shared B2B infrastructure.
We are already doing EDI – what can you do for us?
If you’re already doing EDI, the good news is that you have in place the most complex component of any B2B integration project – the link to your internal ERP/Accounting System. You can now choose to use InterTrade Network Services to exchange data with all your trading partners: with one single secure link to our data center, you’ll have access to the Tier-1 VAN network and to all Internet-based B2B protocols such as AS2. In the future, if you want to expand your B2B connectivity, InterTrade will provide you with additional services such as on-boarding campaigns, EDI testing services and on-demand data transformation.
We are changing our ERP system – can you help?
Your ERP change requires that you rebuilt your EDI/B2B integration layer to support the different data formats used by your new ERP to exchange B2B documents. InterTrade offers a specialized service and a proven methodology to implement such changes with minimal risks and no impact on your trading partners.
Do we need an EDI Gateway software to use your services?
You have a choice. Either you use your internal EDI gateway with InterTrade network services or you can benefit more fully, and eliminate a component, by using the on-demand data transformation software residing inside InterTrade TradeLinks platform.
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