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 WebSphere Partner Gateway and WebSphere Data Interchange through the JMS transport protocol. You must specify a packaging of None when sending a document to WebSphere Data Interchange.
For WebSphere Partner Gateway to send an EDI document to WebSphere Data Interchange, the following steps occur:
In Figure 27, a community participant sends an EDI document in AS packaging to WebSphere Partner Gateway, 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 WebSphere Partner Gateway 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.
For WebSphere Partner Gateway to receive an EDI document from WebSphere Data Interchange, the following steps occur:
In Figure 28, 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 WebSphere Partner Gateway side are set up. Upon receiving the document, WebSphere Partner Gateway routes it to the community participant.
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 29 illustrates the configurations of the two partners.
The three computers have the following software installed:
Refer to the WebSphere Partner Gateway Installation Guide and to the WebSphere Data Interchange documentation for a complete list of software prerequisites.
In this example, partnerOne is operating two computers. Computer A has both WebSphere MQ and WebSphere Data Interchange Server installed. Computer B has WebSphere MQ as well as WebSphere Partner Gateway Enterprise Edition installed. Computer 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 Partner Gateway employs WebSphere MQ as a JMS provider. As such, integration between WebSphere Data Interchange and WebSphere Partner Gateway is through MQ messages destined for JMS API clients.
WebSphere Partner Gateway is used to communicate EDI transactions over the Internet using the AS2 protocol.
Note that, in this example, partnerTwo is using WebSphere Partner Gateway - 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 computers used in this sample scenario. The flow of messages is bi-directional, and so both send and receive artifacts are included.