Communications

 

Over the past few decades, businesses have been communicating electronic documents in the form of EDI messages. The routing and distribution of these documents has been evolving over the last 5 years with the advent of the Internet and new communication protocols. It is important for all corporations to understand the evolution of electronic communication channels as this will be crucial for managing costs. For any business, the key challenge will be to match the correct communication protocol with the right customer and suppliers. The new Internet-based messaging is providing increased flexibility, better response times, and lower cost options for data exchange between trading partners; however, analysis and final decisions will be based on the industry, geographic specific movement, as well as the mixture of trading partner capabilities.

Options for communicating include:

  • Traditional Value-Added Networks
  • Point-to-Point Connections, modem
  • Internet Messaging
    • Mail (SMTP/POP3/IMAP4) 
    • FTP
    • AS1/AS2/AS3

VANs versus Newer Protocols (i.e. EDIINT AS2)

There was a time when transport/communication technology was limited to the Value Added-Networks (VANs) and proprietary protocols. VANs have been the dominant force in data exchange over the past few decades and made EDI a possibility. Today, they still have strengths, but they do have weaknesses. The Internet is evolving as a strong competitor to the existing VAN market. Advances in security such as encryption and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) have made this option more feasible over the last few years. One of the most talked about Internet based protocols is EDIINT. This technology has been highly publicized and is becoming a strong hold in many industries as a viable option for direct connectivity to trading partners, and as an option for reducing large operational costs of the VAN.

It is important to analyze and understand the communication options that can reduce costs when looking at connecting 100% of an organization's suppliers. Additionally, it is important to realize that transport/communication technology differs among regions and industries (i.e. Europe has different highly used protocols such as OFTP and X.400. Certain industries are promoting certain protocols: Retail/CPG&AS2, Automotive&ANX, High Tech&RNIF around RosettaNet transactions).