I concur with Wes.
Additionally, standard SMTP(RFC821) implementations also lack other key
features, such as an access control mechanism. Energy industry organizations
I've worked with require access control, authentication, authorization,
confidentiality and deterministic, auditable delivery of business
transactions.
EDIINT AS2 and ebXML's Message Service come closer to meeting all of these
requirements than standard SMTP or AS1.
Dick Brooks
Systrends, Inc
7855 South River Parkway, Suite 111
Tempe, Arizona 85284
Web: www.systrends.com <http://www.systrends.com>
Phone:480.756.6777,Mobile:205-790-1542,eFax:240-352-0714
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-ietf-ediint@xxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-ietf-ediint@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Rishel,Wes
Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2002 1:16 PM
To: ietf-ediint@xxxxxxx
Subject: RE: How do I send EDI file securely over Internet via FTP or
HTTPS?
A lot of people confuse the theoretical characteristics of SMTP when used
entirely in well-configured, well built SMTP servers and the general state
of e-mail, with a lot of corporate mail servers coming from products that
are not solely SMTP servers and for which administration is a high art
sometime practiced in less than perfect human beings.
Real e-mail service has occasional failure to delivery, for which a
notification is usually, but not always sent back to the sender, occasional
duplication, and very inconsistent transit times. There is no guarantee that
batches sent in separate e-mails would arrive in order. And very few servers
configured to support real e-mail users can swallow a large batch without
choking.
You could achieve reliable transmission of batches using dedicated,
well-built, well-administered SMTP servers, and AS1 but that is beyond the
skill and organizational complexities of many users. There are a few vendors
that help here, but not enough that you can be assured that a trading
partner has a compatible product.
Even if you are lucky and have the skills or common products with your
trading partner to do AS1, there is still a problem for large batches. In
order to transmit an encrypted or compressed batch using real-email you have
to expand it to 133% or more of its original size depending on the scheme
you use to represent binary data as a stream of printable characters.
If you are going to set up a special server, as you must for e-mail, why not
set up a special HTTP server instead, and use AS2 or ebXML?
Even without AS2 there is certainly a lot of EDI being sent over HTTPS now,
using ad hoc specs prepared by channel master trading partners and consortia
such as the GISB and AIAG. It seems to take less technical skills to submit
batches using HTTPS than using SMTP.
-----Original Message-----
From: Carl Hage [mailto:carl@xxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 3:17 PM
To: ietf-ediint@xxxxxxx
Subject: Re: How do I send EDI file securely over Internet via FTP or
HTTP S?
From: "Pae Choi" <paechoi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
[RE: SMTP/email]
> Of course, that is why it's called "Store-&-Forward" mechanism.
> But it does not guarantee "How soon it will get there!"
Store-and-Forward comes from the old days when people had dialup
modems. The best guarantee is to deliver directly without forwarding.
Of course, if you want to send a message but can't reach another
server you have a problem-- same as if you used http/ftp
I wonder why spammers are the only ones to figure this out. The
tragedy is that a good way to get rid of junk mail is to delete mail that
doesn't appear to be store-and-forward.
> Maybe we need new email service that guarantee the delivery
> within a given time, e.g., Fedex or UPS style guarantee delivery. :-)
You can use Fedex to send a package to your neighbor, but it's more
reliable to walk over and give it to them personally. Same for smtp
email.
I suppose there could be a business that runs high availabliity,
geographically isolated redundant servers that can perform an assured
delivery with store and forward if needed, plus archiving. In theory it
could be more reliable than your own computer, which could crash and
corrupt it's files. But a backup-only service is just as good and maybe
better in some ways.
...
> > Ever received an email 30 days later than sent?
No, but I've received very delayed email, as have friends. At least I've
received it!
Ever tried accessing a web site and got a connection timed out?
The real issue is how do you deal with the situation when a direct
delivery can't be made.
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