Re: Need help on AS2

Hi Dick,

Thanks a lot for your prompt and valuable input.

However regarding the industry profiles, if you'd elaborate a little more,
it will be still more useful to us.

Initially, we thought to stick to the Energy Industry profile (GISB)- but
later advised by our product marketing team,
we are planning to implement AS2 in our product in such a manner that it
"CAN CATER TO THE NEEDS OF ANY
INDUSTRY", the reason given by the marketing team was that several of our
customers want an AS2 compliant product- and not all of them (in fact, most
of them don't) belong to the energy industry.

I understand that there are distinct profiles adopted by different
industries like the Energy Industry and the Healthcare Industry(correct me
if I am wrong). But will it be possible if we want to implement a far more
generalized AS2 in our
product which can take care of all these profiles- and even any future
profiles arising out of the AS2 specs?
Thats excatly what the marketing team wants us to do- and thats what I am
breaking my head at.

A couple of other clarifications:
1- AS2-from/ AS2-to are part of the (modified/extended) MIME headers- and
the HTTP headers remain the same. So we need not change our HTTP client.
Tell me if my understanding is wrong.

2- The profile I identified earlier doesn't suit the requirements of the
Energy Industry- does it mean that the Energy Industry will require a few
more things, or that their requirements are "disjoint " from the profile
identified?
Will it be possible to identify a SUPERSET of all possible requirements of
all possible industries- and yet implement it (the SUPERSET)?

If its possible- then it'll address the demands of our marketing team- or
else we'll have to take an alternative route/plan.

In case the above works out (or its possible to work out)- what do you think
will be the cost involved in the exercise in terms of effort required-
provided we have a working SMTP client, a non-AS2 compliant HTTP client- and
on the server side, a
non-AS2 compliant HTTP web server?

We shall highly appreciate your help in this matter.

Thanks and Regards,

Santanu De
Lead Development Engineer- ECXpert
iPlanet India Development Center
Sun Microsystems (I) Private Limited
Voice: +91-80-229 8989 (x27641)
Email: [email protected]

iPlanet- A SUN|Netscape Alliance- visit http://www.iplanet.com














----- Original Message -----
From: Dick Brooks <[email protected]>
To: Santanu De <[email protected]>; <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 6:44 PM
Subject: RE: Need help on AS2


> Santanu,
>
> >We have figured out that in order to implement the AS2 client, we need to
> do
> >three things-
> >1) Package the data using standard MIME packaging.
> >2) Encrypt using S/MIME.
> >3) Delegate the HTTP client to send the data across to the trading
partner.
>
> The profile you identified above does not meet the Energy industry
> requirements for AS2.
>
> >However, a few things are still in dark. Like, where do the specific AS2
> >headers like AS2-from and AS2-to
> >come from? Are they a part of the MIME packaging in 1), or a part of the
> >HTTP headers attached in 3)? Does
> >it mean that the HTTP client needs to be changed accordingly?
>
> The AS2-To and AS2-From headers are not part of the AS2 spec, yet. These
> were added by some vendors during an interoperability test when they
> discovered that certain HTTP headers "collide" with e-mail headers (e.g.
> From). There is also a risk that other e-mail headers used by AS2 could
> collide with future versions of HTTP. For example if a future version of
> HTTP includes a Subject or Message-ID header, the AS2 spec may have to
> prefix the e-mail versions of these headers with "AS2-" in order to avoid
a
> collision with Web Servers. This is due to the fact that AS2, e-mail
> profile, doesn't follow proper MIME conventions for header extensions
(X-).
> I've already addressed this with other AS2 folks and hopefully we'll have
it
> resolved before the next AS2 spec is released.
>
> >And several other issues- which are not discussed in detail. Actually,
any
> >input for AS2 implementation will be highly
> >appreciated.
>
> Group 8760 has implemented EDIINT AS2 within the Energy industry. A
typical
> implementation of AS2 following the Energy industry profile, with no
> customizations, takes on average, 3 days and is "significantly" lower cost
> than other, similar approaches, like RosettaNet.
>
> Dick Brooks (EDIINT AS2 co-author)
> http://www.8760.com/
>
>
>