Cleo Updates B2B Communications Software

March 4, 2008 Alex Woodie

In this age of e-commerce, sending and receiving orders over the phone, the mail, or fax machines is too slow, too manual, and too prone to error. Instead, companies are increasingly adopting B2B technologies like AS2 and encrypted FTP to ensure their orders are handled expeditiously. Cleo Communications, one of the unheralded developers of business communications software used by more than 10,000 companies, recently introduced a minor release of its core B2B technology, called VersaLex.

VersaLex is the core Java-based communications engine behind several products used to send and receive EDI documents over the Internet using standards such as AS2 or FTP/S. These other products include Cleo’s flagship LexiCom offering, and several third-party B2B offerings that are based on OEM versions of Cleo’s VersaLex.

With VersaLex version 3.5, the Rockford, Illinois, company has made several improvements in the areas of load balancing, preconfigured hosts, automated licensing, and parsing the responses of HTTP servers.

On the load balancing front, version 3.5’s integration with VLProxy ensures maximum throughput by automatically distributing volume between available servers, according to Cleo. In terms of preconfigured hosts, VersaLex users can get up and running faster by triggering a download of a preconfigured host from Cleo’s Web site directly from within the VersaLex software. Version 3.5 also delivers better parsing of HTTP server responses for custom phrases which, if not found, trigger an e-mail notification.

VersaLex 3.5 also delivers the capability to detect duplicate file names for AS2 and AS3 messages, which was one of the new tests introduced by the Drummond Group for its latest round of certifications, the AS2-3Q07 test. The VersaLex 3.5 product is also covered under Drummond’s ebMS-4Q07 and AS3-1Q07 certifications.

VersaLex runs on all major platforms, including i5/OS V5R3 and V5R4. For more information, visit www.cleo.com.