Depends on the EDI package, really. We use a unix based translator by
Sterling, so my experience is both limited in scope and expansive in terms
of what Unix can offer. :-{)
For us to mail a transaction from our test machine, for example, we just
type mail address!of!our!van <file.to.send and zip, it's outta here.
Production processes use a similar daemon-driven script to check a directory
and mail to the van whatever's found there.
When our van receives a transaction, it's mailed to the production server,
which has a .forward file to pipe it to a shell script. After a minimal
amount of processing, the mail headers are stripped off, and it is deposited
into the inbound directory for the production and test server.
A system that contains its own communications suite and gateway would
probably be a more difficult animal to install into a framework like this.
However, seeing the process that I've described, you can see how it's not
impossible to break this out into a "true" Internet solution. There would be
implementation and maintenance needed, to build and maintain address books
and lists, for example, whereas today we only have to send the transaction
and let the VAN deal with addressing it.
Plus I'd have to find a way to hold off the Mongol Horde of project managers
beating us up for new transactions and trading partners. Which brings up
another point; if trad-EDI is dead, nobody's told anybody that I work with.
;-{)
> ----------
> From: Barr James[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 04, 2000 2:13 PM
> To: Hurd, Richard A (Rich); [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: RE: EDI over Internet
>
> Email is a good alternative, but how easily is it used with *current* EDI
> suites? We use Harbinger TLE, and after looking at how the scheduler and
> gateway (communications programs) work, it seems that something like *FTP*
> would be treated just like any other protocol, but I'm not sure just how
> e-mail would work into the system. I would like to implement EDI over the
> Internet using existing tools.
>
> Great thought, though!
>
>
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