TradingNetworksOverview

What is a Trading Network? A trading network is a system of organizations that are connected to share business information. The organizations in a trading network are strategic partners, buyers, suppliers, and marketplaces.

What is webMethods Trading Networks? webMethods Trading Networks (also referred to as Trading Networks) is a product that enables your enterprise to link with other companies (buyers, suppliers, strategic partners) and marketplaces to form a business-to-business trading network. The organizations in your network are referred to as trading partners (partners).You can exchange business documents with the partners in your network to relay mission critical production information. The business documents can be in any format recognized by two partners that exchange data. Use Trading Networks to analyze the information that is passing through your network.

Architecture and Components :

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TradingNetworksOverview
Trading Networks Engine is the runtime component of Trading Networks. It consists of: Integration Server with the WmTN and WmTNWeb packages installed and enabled. The server handles the management of partners on your network and the exchange of documents. You interact with the server via the Trading Networks Console Trading Networks Console, which is a standalone Java GUI, is the main user interface for Trading Networks. Use the Trading Networks Console to perform functions such as managing the profiles of your trading partners, designing how documents are exchanged through your network, and performing real-time monitoring and analysis. Trading Networks Web Manager is another user (web) interface for Trading Networks that you access via a browser. It offers a limited set of the functionality that is provided through the Trading Networks Console. Trading Networks in a Clustered Environment You can run Trading Networks on Integration Servers in a cluster. If you run Trading Networks in this type of environment, all of the servers in the cluster have to share the same Trading Networks database, which must be an external database.

Partners in a Trading Network To create a trading network, you add partners to your network. The following shows a network in which all the participants use Trading Networks.

Trading Networks does not require that all participants in the network use webMethods Trading Networks or webMethods for Partners software. If you have a buyer, supplier, or strategic partner that uses other software, you can add them to your network.

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TradingNetworksOverview

In the above network, one of the non-Trading Networks partners is a webMethods Integration Server that is not using Trading Networks. You can also include partners that do not use webMethods software, such as an application server. In both of the above network illustrations, the partner in the middle is referred to as the hub or the sponsor of the network. The other partners are referred to as spokes or members. The hub hosts the network and the spokes participate by interacting with the hub. Trading Partner Management One of the main functions you perform with the Trading Networks Console is trading partner management. Trading partner management involves adding partners with which you want to exchange business documents, specifying the protocols and document formats you use to conduct business with those partners, and managing the information you collect about the partners. To add a partner, you add a profile for the partner. Trading Networks is aware of only partners for which it has a profile. The profile contains information about a partner, such as the corporation name, contact information, and how to connect to the partner to send it business documents. A profile is made up of fields. Process Management Process Management is managing documents that are part of a business process. Documents that Trading Networks receives can take part in process management. After Trading Networks processes a document using business document exchange (processing based on processing rules), Trading Networks can then pass the document on to the process management facility, if appropriate. Visibility into Your Network Trading Networks gives you visibility into your network to learn about the partners in your network and the documents that your Trading Networks system has received. You can view: Profiles of the partners in your system Attributes that have been extracted from documents Content of documents that have passed through your system Status of documents that Trading Networks is in the process of delivering Audit information of the activity that has occurred in your Trading Networks system

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TradingNetworksOverview
The Trading Networks Console and Trading Networks Web Manager are user name/password protected. The Role of Trading Networks in Integration Server: When you install the EDI Module, four packages are installed into the Integration Server: 1) WmEDI package, 2) WmEDIforTN package, 3) WmEDIINT package, and 4) WmEDIsamples package.

Processing of Inbound EDI Documents For inbound processing, you create: Clients that send EDI documents to the Integration Server Services that process the inbound EDI document The EDI documents are documents in standard EDI format, such as ANSI X12, UCS,VICS, UN/EDIFACT, or EANCOM.

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EDI Client You create one or more clients to send EDI documents to the Integration Server. A client can use one of the following transports to send the EDI document to the Integration Server: HTTP or HTTPS FTP File Polling

Forming EDI Documents to Send Outbound For outbound processing, you form an EDI document that can be sent outbound. For example, you might use data from an internal document (e.g., a document from a backend system) to form the EDI document. To form the EDI document, you create a service. The EDI Module provides built-in services that you can use as building blocks for creating the service.

Prepared by Narendra Thota

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TradingNetworksOverview

Prepared by Narendra Thota

[email protected]