A trading community typically revolves around a hub--an
enterprise that acts as the Community Manager. Businesses of various
sizes, known as community participants, connect to the hub through
the Internet. In addition, participants themselves can act as a
hub. Figure 1 illustrates a trading
community consisting of a Community Manager and a set of participants.
Figure 1. A trading community consisting of a Community Manager and community participants.
Partner Gateway provides a solution for each type of participant
in the trading community.
- WebSphere Partner Gateway Enterprise Edition is ideal for the
larger enterprise that wants to connect to an unlimited number of
trading partners using a variety of transports and message formats.
This enterprise acts as the Community Manager, establishing the
community, getting partners on board, and monitoring the activity
of all participants in the community.
- WebSphere Partner Gateway Advanced Edition is suited to the
customer who wants the flexibility of transport and message formats
but has a more limited number of trading partners. This type of
enterprise can act as a Community Manager (of its own smaller community)
as well as a community participant in a larger community. The right
side of the previous illustration shows an example of a client who
is both a community participant (to the Community Manager) as well
as a hub to its own community.
- WebSphere Partner Gateway - Express is designed for small to
medium-sized businesses that want to integrate with a very small
number of partners using a limited protocol support as quickly,
simply and affordably as possible. Typically, the Express customer
connects to a trading community operated by a large and important
trading partner at that partner's request.
The remainder of this document focuses on Partner Gateway Enterprise
and Advanced Editions. For information on Partner Gateway - Express,
refer to the InfoCenter for WebSphere Partner Gateway - Express.
