Should we even waste time defining Delivery Channels (EDI Addresses) to accommodate non-IP protocols? IP is going to take over the world, anyway. See Michael C. Rawlins' exposé on ebXML, concluding with "ebXML - The Road Ahead," at http://www.rawlinsecconsulting.com/ebXML/. In it, Mike says:
"...IP was deliberately not specified because the TRP team wanted to promote an open, 'protocol neutral' solution. But, at the very basic level you can't achieve interoperability if you speak different network protocols. This is an almost pathological pursuit of openness over interoperability. That we didn't specify IP over the public Internet should be an embarrassment to all of us who participated. UN/CEFACT and OASIS need to bite the bullet and take a stand on this. "If we care at all about interoperability, I see no excuse for failing to specify some subset of HTTP, SMTP, and FTP as the approved protocols. Only two would be best, but I could live with all three so long as some comprehensive, coherent recommendations were made about appropriate uses of the three. Again, we don't achieve interoperability if my application talks ebXML over CORBA IIOP, and yours talks IBM's MQ Series or RPCs a la RFC 1831. Even more to the point, SMEs and vendors of SME software need some reasonable guidance about whether to support HTTP, SMTP, or FTP, since cost-wise it may not be realistic to ask them to support all three." I haven't heard any articulation on this list thus far giving the minimum set of protocols and packaging techniques we should accommodate in our Healthcare CPP (Electronic Partner Profile). There are all sorts of junk out there like dial-up Kermit, but is it fair to the authors of the "Addresses and delivery channels" working paper (Dave Minch, Tim Collins, and Dick Brooks) to speculate on what's actually used if nobody takes the trouble to inform them of their requirements? Hearing none, I would say we can safely concentrate on IP protocols like FTP, SMTP and HTTP. The other "legacy" techniques could be accommodated by some provision in the CPP Delivery Channel for describing them in a textual format. William J. Kammerer Novannet, LLC. +1 (614) 487-0320
