Glossary

A

Action
Also known as a business action. A message with content of a business nature such as a purchase order request or a request for quote. The exchange of business actions and business signals comprise the message choreography necessary to complete a business activity specified by a given PIP.

B

Business action
See Action.

Business protocol
A set of rules and instructions (protocol) used to format and transmit information across a computer network. Examples include RosettaNet, XML, binary file, and EDI.

Business process
A predefined set of business transactions that represent the steps required to achieve a business objective.

C

Community Console
The Community Console is a Web-based tool used to configure Business Integration Connect and to manage the flow of business documents between the Community Manager and participants. The Community Manager can view information about the entire community, while participants can only edit their own profiles and monitor the flow of their own documents.

Community Manager
The company that purchases Business Integration Connect, distributes it to its trading partners, and acts as the hub community. The Community Manager has one administrative user, the manager admin, who is responsible for the health and maintenance of the Community Manager's portion of the community.

Community operator
The individual responsible for the configuration and overall health and maintenance of the system, hub-wide (hub admin). The hub admin can access all features.

Community participant
Also called the participant, partner, or trading partner. The participant sends business documents to and receives business documents from the Community Manager. Participants can access features that support their own interactions with the trading community. Features excluded from the participant's view include Community Console functions such as system configuration.

D

Document
A collection of information adhering to an organizational convention. There are multiple documents in a process.

Document flow definition
A document flow definition defines a specific business document that the Community Manager can process. Each document to be exchanged between the Community Manager and a participant must be defined using a document flow definition. For the system to receive, process, and route a business document, two or more document flow definitions (for example, one for the inbound document, the other for the outbound document) must be linked to create an interaction. See also Interaction.

Document Manager
The Document Manager polls persistent shared storage for documents, performs any user-configured processing, such as validation, digital signature verification, and transformation, and delivers the document to its final destination.

Document protocol
See Business protocol.

G

Gateway
A gateway specifies the destination information needed for the Document Manager to send a document to the Community Manager or another participant. A gateway is defined by a gateway definition, which includes a destination URI, optional login information, and transport-level settings for the gateway.

I

Interaction
An interaction contains all the necessary information Business Integration Connect needs to receive, process, and route documents defined by document flow definitions. See also Document flow definition.

N

Non-repudiation data repository
A non-repudiation repository is the location where Business Integration Connect stores copies of documents (and sometimes authentication information) that makes it impossible for either party to deny (repudiate) that the document was transmitted and received.

P

Package
Identifies a document packaging format used to transmit a document over the internet. For example, RNIF, AS1, and AS2.

Participant connection
A participant connection holds the information needed for the exchange of a specific document between a specific participant and another participant, such as the Community Manager. It includes the name of the participants, the interaction to execute, and the gateways to use. When a new document is received, the system determines the correct participant connection to use. Once a participant connection is found for the document, it can be processed. See also Interaction.

Participant profile
A participant profile includes information about the participant such as the participant name, the participant's business identifier such as its DUNS number, and the user IDs that have access to the Community Console.

PIP
See RosettaNet PIP.

Process
A process specifies the sequence of documents or messages to be exchanged between the Community Managers and participants to execute a business transaction.

R

Receiver
The Receiver component accepts documents from community participants and from back-end applications and stores them in a file system for the Document Manager to process. Specifically, it receives a document over a supported transport protocol, writes the document and metadata relating to the document to the shared file system, records any transport-specific data to the metadata file, and completes any transport-specific technical acknowledgment.

RosettaNet PIP (Partner Interface Process)
RosettaNet PIPs define business processes between trading partners. PIPs are specialized system-to-system XML-based dialogs. A PIP depicts the activities, decisions, and Partner Role Interactions that fulfill a business transaction between two partners in a given supply chain. (In Business Integration Connect, partners are called participants.) Each participant involved in the Partner Interface Process must fulfill the obligations specified in a PIP instance. If any one party fails to perform a service as specified in the PIP implementation guide, the business transaction is null and void.

T

Target
A target is an instance of a receiver. It designates the URI of an entry point for documents coming into Business Integration Connect. It specifies a repository location from which the Document Manager is to retrieve documents. Each target supports documents sent using a single transport type. In addition, there can be multiple targets for a given transport type, one for each document format.

Copyright IBM Corp. 2003, 2004