Introduction

WebSphere Data Interchange integrates electronic data interchange (EDI) into the WebSphere business process, messaging, and Internet-based B2B capabilities. You exchange documents and messages between Business Integration Connect and WebSphere Data Interchange through the JMS transport protocol. You must specify a packaging of None when sending a document to WebSphere Data Interchange.

Note:
WebSphere Data Interchange provides other types of integration options, such as file-based integration. Refer to the WebSphere Data Interchange documentation for details on enabling the exchange of documents through file-based integration.

Sending documents to WebSphere Data Interchange

For Business Integration Connect to send an EDI document to WebSphere Data Interchange, the following steps occur:

  1. A community participant sends an EDI document to Business Integration Connect. The document is sent through the AS2 over HTTP transport protocol. Business Integration Connect strips off the AS2 packaging from the EDI document.
  2. Business Integration Connect places the EDI document on a queue.
    Note:
    Business Integration Connect determines the protocol used in the document by examining the first three characters of the EDI document. It then determines, from the protocol type, the sender and receiver information. See Overview of EDI routing for details.
  3. WebSphere Data Interchange reads the EDI document from the queue. It performs the tasks of unwrapping, validating, and translating the EDI document.
    Note:
    WebSphere Data Interchange must be configured for user profiles and the desired mappings.
  4. WebSphere Data Interchange distributes the document to a back-end system. If the back-end system is WebSphere InterChange Server, WebSphere Data Interchange sends the document to the WebSphere Business Integration Adapter for MQ to create a business object and invoke a collaboration within InterChange Server.

Figure 25. EDI document from Business Integration Connect


In Figure 25, a community participant sends an AS2 document to Business Integration Connect, which, in turn, sends it to the EDI_IN queue on the WebSphere Data Interchange side. Note that the remote queue, transmission queue, receiver queue (in the example, EDI_IN), and the sender and receiver channels must be set up so that the message sent to Business Integration Connect is transmitted to the EDI_IN queue. The WebSphere Data Interchange server picks up the EDI document, searches for the user profiles, mappings, and so on, converts the document to XML, and puts it in the XML_OUT queue.

Receiving documents from WebSphere Data Interchange

For Business Integration Connect to receive an EDI document from WebSphere Data Interchange, the following steps occur:

  1. WebSphere Data Interchange places the EDI document on a queue.
  2. Business Integration Connect reads the message from the queue.
    Note:
    Business Integration Connect determines how to route the document as described in Overview of EDI routing.
  3. Business Integration Connect routes the document to the appropriate community participant.

Figure 26. Sending an EDI document to WebSphere Business Integration Connect


In Figure 26, an XML document is placed into the XML_IN queue for WebSphere Data Interchange to translate. It is assumed that the user profiles, mappings, and so on, are already performed. Upon receiving a valid XML document, WebSphere Data Interchange converts it into EDI format and places the output in the EDI_OUT queue (a remote queue). It is also assumed that the transmission queue, sender and receiver channels, and receiver queue on the Business Integration Connect side are set up. Upon receiving the document, Business Integration Connect routes it to the community participant.

Sample scenario used in this chapter

Throughout this chapter, you will see the steps to set up the exchange of EDI documents between two trading partners. The EDI documents are sent over the internet, and AS2 (over HTTP) is used as the communication protocol.

In this sample, the trading partners are Partner One and Partner Two. Figure 27 illustrates the configurations of the two partners.

Figure 27. Configuration of two partners in sample scenario


The following software is used to implement this sample scenario:

Refer to the Business Integration Connect Installation Guide and to the WebSphere Data Interchange documentation for a complete list of software prerequisites.

In this example, partnerOne is operating two machines. Machine A has both WebSphere MQ and WebSphere Data Interchange Server installed. Machine B has WebSphere MQ as well as WebSphere Business Integration Connect Enterprise Edition installed. Machine B supports the communications between the two trading partners.

WebSphere Data Interchange supports integration with WebSphere MQ, enabling interoperation with a wide range of enterprise applications and business process engines. WebSphere Business Integration Connect employs WebSphere MQ as a JMS provider. As such, integration between WebSphere Data Interchange and WebSphere Business Integration Connect is through MQ messages destined for JMS API clients.

WebSphere Business Integration Connect is used to communicate EDI transactions over the Internet using the AS2 protocol.

Note that, in this example, partnerTwo is using WebSphere Business Integration Connect - Express to accept transactions via AS2 and has its own WebSphere Data Interchange environment for handling translations and acknowledgments.

Throughout this chapter, you will see the details about configuring the machines used in this sample scenario. The flow of messages is bi-directional, and so both send and receive artifacts are included.

Copyright IBM Corp. 2003, 2004