Sample message flow

Figure 8 shows the flow of an EDI document with AS packaging sent over the HTTP transport protocol through the Business Integration Connect server, for eventual delivery to an EDI back-end system.

In this example, it is assumed that the inbound AS2 message requested an asynchronous MDN (message disposition notification).

Figure 8. Sequence diagram of the delivery of an EDI document from a participant to an EDI back-end system.


  1. The AS2 request with the EDI payload enters the Receiver component of Business Integration Connect.
  2. The Receiver saves the document to persistent shared storage.
  3. The Receiver returns an HTTP 200 response to the community participant.
  4. The Document Manager picks up the document for processing by the Document Processing Engine and saves the original document to the non-repudiation database. The Document Processing Engine processes the document, which includes:
    1. Performing decryption, de-enveloping, and structure-level validation
    2. Performing authentication and authorization and duplicate checks
    3. Performing content-level validation
    4. Digitally signing or encrypting the message (or both), if specified by the configuration.
    5. Adding header information.
    6. Saving the final packaged document to the non-repudiation database
  5. The Delivery Manager sends the document (in this case, using the JMS transport) to the EDI back-end system.
  6. A message disposition notification (MDN) is sent to the community participant.
  7. The community participant acknowledges the receipt of the MDN by sending an HTTP 200.

Copyright IBM Corp. 2003, 2004