We too, are investigating EDI over the Internet. Sterling Commerce has a
White Paper discussing the pros and cons of doing EDI traffic via FTP. Of
course, they have a connectivity product to sell, so they are obviously
pushing that. Basically, they said that connectivity via FTP isn't "ready
for primetime" when it comes to reliable, secure B2B document transfer. That
said, some of the points in their White Paper that I thought were most
interesting related to security and accountability (document tracking).
Security, obviously, becomes the responsibility of each end of the transfer.
I would think that this would be pretty much a no-brainer to secure.
When it comes to document tracking, admittedly, transfers via FTP offer
nothing in the way of tracking unless both sides have good acknowledgment
reconciliation procedures in place. Sure, maybe there isn't a nice web
front-end that allows you to see what has been successfully picked up or
sent, but then again, if the process was brought back in-house, wouldn't
that information be available on your own platform (ie: what was sent, what
was/wasn't ACKed, etc.)?
To me, the transport (ie: IP vs dial-up) and the transfer method (ie: FTP vs
"whatever protocol dial-up uses") should really be non-issues. I think the
issue becomes is a third-party (VAN) more practical than direct TP to TP
connection given that an IP connection (like the Internet) "levels" the
communications arena?
To address some of your questions:
What if our server is down ?
The transfer would fail on the sender's end. It would be up to the sender
to manage this. Really, this would be no different than currently managing
a communications session with a VAN.
Do we use FTP ? If so, what if the partner has a different flavor
and
we can't connect ?
I don't know. Anyone with a good answer?
What kind of problems have people seen when moving away from the
mothership (VANS) such as resolution of the age ol' problem of " I
sent
you a transaction on ... no you didn't ...."
I would think that it really wouldn't be too different from what is done
now. If you are reconciling your acknowledgments and have proactive
procedures to track down unacknowledged documents, it shouldn't be an issue.
If, however, you don't, then it becomes a bigger problem.
Are there security setups that need to be done with every new
partner
that wants to send or is it a one time setup of the server ?
I don't know. Anyone with a good answer?
Side question:
Sterling does offer dial-up connectivity options. We are using a dial-up
connection right now doing CLEO over an Async connection. Can a VAN like
Sterling offer the same features/offerings (document tracking, security,
etc.) that they offer dial-up customers but do it over an IP connection?
(Maybe the transfer would be FTP, baybe it wouldn't, I don't know. Not sure
if it matters.) It just seems that the majority of our EDI problems tend to
fall in the area of communications.
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2000 11:27 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: EDI over Internet
>
> At the risk of showing my technical ignorance, I must ask the following
> question ! I've asked around my company but haven't got a real good
> reading yet.
>
> First some background. I have about 1,200 trading partners setup through
> VANs and private dials to OEMs. We process about 140,000 transactions
> per
> month. We are also growing (slowly) our connections with suppliers. I
> want to open up other ways to send/receive EDI transactions (ANSI,EDIFACT)
> using the Internet instead of VANs for those partners that want to
> participate in such a path. I also want to be prepared to accept data
> from other sources such as XML. All of these inputs will go, by various
> translation methods, into my legacy EDI system which I use to distribute
> transactions to my business units using an internal standard format.
>
> My question is in two parts:
>
> First, what is the general range of administration cost to support
> partners sending data to an Internet server ? I'm not asking about the
> cost of servers, firewalls, etc. Assume for this question that these
> already exist and are paid for by the department that owns our website.
> My question is specifically about how many people it takes so support the
> setup and maintenance of the actual partner connections and movement of
> data into backend legacy systems.
>
> Second, If I start telling our partners that we can accept data over an
> Internet IP connection, what types of problems can I expect to see - none,
> some, alot... It sounds so simple, there just has to be a technical catch
> somewhere, right ?
> Things that pop into my head are:
> What if our server is down ?
> Do we use FTP ? If so, what if the partner has a different flavor and
> we can't connect ?
> What kind of problems have people seen when moving away from the
> mothership (VANS) such as resolution of the age ol' problem of " I sent
> you a transaction on ... no you didn't ...."
> Are there security setups that need to be done with every new partner
> that wants to send or is it a one time setup of the server ?
>
> I ask these questions because I need to evaluate whether it is cost
> beneficial to have an third party host a site that all partners connect to
> or it is easier and cheaper to just let everyone drop data onto a server
> connected to our website (with all the proper security bells and whistles
> included). I don't know the costs on these hosted sites yet, but they
> claim to give you the same capabilities as the VANs for store-and-forward
> functions and also claim to shield the hub company from all the plethora
> of
> different types of connections by providing one IP pipe into the hub. The
> idea sounds good in some ways. I know I'll need to get data from the ANX,
> Internet and probably other sources soon. It also looks like these hosted
> sites can gather data from VANs so I can have one pipe into my legacy EDI
> system instead of the various dials I have now.
>
> Any opinions and information is greatly appreciated.
>
> Regards,
>
> Rich Nering
> EDI System Manager
> Parker Hannifin Corporation, Cleveland, Ohio
>
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