Communication using EDI

You might notice that SmartBridge supports many different communication networks, and many document formats. That is because, while there are standards in EDI, there are many standards, and every sector uses its own.

A bit of history

EDI before the Internet

Electronic Data Interchange or EDI is in use since the early days of electronic communication, around 1985. In those days, there was no such thing as the Internet, a worldwide network of computer networks; there were only closed computer networks, comparable to an intranet network. These networks used network protocols that were invented before our current Internet, like X.25 (which was a predecessor to TCP/IP, which we call the Internet) and X.400 mailboxes (a competitor of SMTP).

When at a later moment different protocols were invented, these protocols did not replace the older ones, rather these co-existed in different networks. Like physical phone lines and mobile networks.

Security

What happened with these more generic transport protocols, also happened with protocols concerning security. In the early days of these networks, security was not an issue: Everyone knew each other. When the networks grew big, the need for security grew, too. Some protocols got security extensions, others got a secure alternative by mixing it with a secure protocol, and completely new secure alternatives were invented.

More requirements led to more standards

The more people were doing EDI or using the Internet, the better they knew which things would improve their communication. Which lead to even more standards. Think of features like:

• Encryption (to prevent eavesdropping).
• Authentication (to verify that the parties involved are how they say they are).
• Integrity (to make sure no one tampered with the message).
• Non-repudiation (to know whether the recipient actually received the message).
• Error correction (if the connection is lost, does it continue where it stopped, and fix itself).
• Peer-to-peer (in case you want to cut out the middle-man).

This led to the rise of intermediate parties in the form of Value Added Networks (VANs): Companies that were able to provide features that were originally not present on the network. As data connectivity was expensive, data transfers where only initiated when needed. they made money of every transaction.

The same with document formats

Something similar happened with EDI document formats.

In the 1980's EDI started out with ANSI X.12 in the US. The United Nations (UN) also created a standard: TDI. The UN later tried to consolidate X.12 with TDI into EDIFACT. But in the mean time, several sectors already started creating their own standards, as each sector often had specific requirements not needed elsewhere. For instance, it is very important to communicate the freshness of vegetables, but this information is irrelevant to communicate about tires. So, the UK retail developed TRADACOMS, based on TDI. The European automotive created ODETTE. The finance sector created Swift. And this is just the beginning...

So, in the 30 years of EDI, only some document formats can be regarded as standards that are broadly accepted, like X12, EDIFACT, TRADACOMS, and ODETTE. On every continent each sector developed their own set of standards in networking and in document formatting, and there are no plans for consolidation. On the contrary, with the rise in popularity of XML formats, the number of standards is growing even bigger every year.

EDI nowadays

Since the early days the Internet has changed a lot. Being permanently online has become relatively cheap, as is transferring data. New protocols have emerged that are easier to implement, while also providing more secure data transfer. Still, many networks use old or less secure protocols, and/or old data formats. Why is that?

Because the sector standardized their communications, there are many parties involved. They have set up an infrastructure that has proven itself. Changing its infrastructure means investing in a new infrastructure, which not only costs money but also takes time, and a lot has to be invested in managing all the companies on the network to change.

Most common network protocols

Common document formats

The document formats that are used, depend on the sector you are in, as the communication requirements of for instance the military sector are incomparable to the ones of the food sector. Some common document formats are:

These are common document formats used for communications between systems of different companies. It is likely that your sector uses its own document formats. Furthermore, your ERP-system will most likely not produce these common EDI formats, but export to CSV or IDOC.