Re: Status of EDI-over-FTP?

[Dave Darnell <dave_d@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There still may be hope for using FTP for Internet EDI.

Has anybody looked at the "Secure FTP" product that COMM-PRESS is selling?

I talked with the guys at the COMM-PRESS booth at the DISA conference in
Orlando and it sounds like it solves some problems with FTP.  The word is a
very large retailer will roll out Internet EDI to all their trading
partners with this product.  And it will traverse the firewalls of the
VAN's selling Internet access via their IP EDI trading partner networks
(e.g. IBM Global Network/ Advantis).

My worry is that HTTP/Post just is not robust enough for the high end EDI
programs (My largest client sends out 2 to 20 megabyte EDI invoice
transmissions on a regular basis -- yes, one was 20 megabytes!).

In the retail industry the transactions are getting huge, especially the
ones like the 852 Product Activity Data.  Internet EDI is really the only
cost effective solution for this level of EDI.

By the way, standard FTP through the IBM GN's SOCKS firewall to the
Internet does work fine (I have used it - but only for non-EDI production
file transmissions).  But, there is that problem with standard FTP's
unencrypted user id's and passwords.

Regards,
Dave

At 01:58 PM 5/1/98 -0400, J. David MacDonald wrote:
>Rik,
>
>At this point, I think I'm fighting an unawareness problem with our
>participants.
>Fortunately, we're only at the "discovery" stage.
>
>Can't see any problem with implementing the HTTP/Post method, technically
>speaking.
>Will have to investigate more, though.
>
>Regards, Dave
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Rik Drummond <drummond@xxxxxxxxxx>
>To: J. David MacDonald <david.macdonald@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; ietf-ediint@xxxxxxx
><ietf-ediint@xxxxxxx>
>Date: Friday, May 01, 1998 1:25 PM
>Subject: RE: Status of EDI-over-FTP?
>
>
>>You summarized it well. HTTP/post is the direction for file transfers
>>because or the fire wall problems with ftp.
>>
>>Will HPPT/post work for you?
>>
>>Regards, Rik
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: owner-ietf-ediint@xxxxxxx [mailto:owner-ietf-ediint@xxxxxxx]On
>>> Behalf Of J. David MacDonald
>>> Sent: Friday, May 01, 1998 11:54 AM
>>> To: ietf-ediint@xxxxxxx
>>> Subject: Status of EDI-over-FTP?
>>>
>>>
>>> I checked the EDI-INT archives for discussions about
>>> EDI-over-FTP. There was
>>> a lot of discussion in the early days as to the pros and cons of
>>> it (mostly
>>> the cons).
>>>
>>> here's what I've gleaned from the substantial body of knowledge in the
>>> archives regarding EDI over FTP:
>>> - too application/implementation specific to make it interoperable on a
>>> large scale
>>> - lots of problems going through corporate firewalls
>>> - loopholes in FTP specification (open to hacking attempts)
>>> - not a message passing architecture
>>> - "EDI over HTTP" is probably better for point-to-point implementation
>>>
>>> What is the status of FTP with regard to EDI-INT?  In the early days, it
>>> seems like it was to be included in the EDI-INT specification but got
>>> dropped along the way.
>>>
>>> Was it simply de-scoped from the specification (ie. to be included at a
>>> later date) or were there too many problems with it to justify
>>> inclusion in
>>> the specification?
>>>
>>> For large corporate clients (ie. thousands of transactions per day), is
>>> EDI-over-HTTP the recommended point-to-point mechanism?
>>>
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Dave
>>>
>>>
>>
> 
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