EDI Hub

EDI data have long since been exchanged between business partners through value-added network services (VANS), employing a simple hub-and-spoke model, the business partners being the spokes and the VANS operator assuming the hub role.

While being quite effective in the pre-Internet era, VANS are hardly competitive anymore. However, more recent approaches to the reliable exchange of EDI data like EDIINT AS/2 create new issues: While eliminating the VANS's high volume costs, Internet-based point-to-point approaches like AS/2 dramatically increase the one-off setup costs by requiring all participants to assume server roles, not just a single dedicated hub. While acceptable for large companies, this is bad news for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

The EDI Hub project presented here combines the simplicity of the hub-and-spoke approach with the Internet's negligible volume costs. By building upon open Web standards like (s)ftp and http, it avoids vendor lock-in due to proprietary technology. It introduces self-management through Web forms to avoid costs for hub administration, and it offers EDI Tracking & Tracing to keep a hub community always up-to-date with message status information.