New AS2 Certifications on Tap from Drummond

Published: January 8, 2008

by Alex Woodie

Companies looking to implement an AS2 EDI communications system in 2008 would be wise to check out the latest round of certifications from the Drummond Group, a private company that tests third-party EDI and business communication products for accuracy interoperability.

Twice a year, Rik Drummond and his team at Drummond Group load the latest AS2 products sent to them by software vendors, and tests them to make sure they accurately encode, transmit, and unpack the EDI transactions as they're sent over the HTTP/S protocol.

In late December, Drummond Group posted the results for the test conducted during the third quarter of 2007. This time, 19 companies demonstrated interoperability with their products, including Axway, Boomi, Cleo Communications, Click Commerce, The Descartes Systems Group, EDS, EXTOL International, GXS, IBM, Inovis, LANSA, /n software, nuBridges, SEEBURGER, Software AG, Sterling Commerce, TIBCO Software, Transentric, and Tumbleweed Communications. Several of these vendors' products run on the i5/OS server.

The latest round of testing included a new profile, the AS2 Reliability Profile. This capability is used to ensure that there are no duplicate messages, such as duplicate invoices or purchases, sent during the retry and resend processes of regular AS2 operations. Drummond typically adds one profile with each bi-annual test, which vendors can choose to include in the test or not. In the latest round, Drummond offered five or six additional tests above the basic interoperability test.

While some people are critical of Drummond Group and the fees it charges to test EDI communications products, Drummond stresses the importance of interoperability testing. "Millions of AS2 transactions are conducted each day, and a wide variety of document types and sizes are being exchanged between heterogeneous environments. The requirement for secured, guaranteed delivery has never been greater," he says.

The third-quarter test results can be viewed at www.drummondgroup.com/html-v2/as2-companies.html.

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