Hermes 2 Open Source New Release

[Patrick Yee <kcyee@cecid.hku.hk>]

*Hermes 2 Open Source New Release 
<http://www.cecid.hku.hk/pressrelease_20070511_H20released.php>
*

Hong Kong SAR, Peoples Republic of China - 11 May 2007 - Center for 
E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID), The University of Hong 
Kong (HKU) is pleased to announce a new open source version of Hermes 
Messaging Gateway v2.0 (H2O) will be released on 1 June 2007, to replace 
the two current editions of Hermes (H2CE and H2EE). Thanks to project 
funding from the HKSAR Government's Innovation & Technology Commission, 
more features and functionality of Hermes are available as open source 
to users and developers of business-to-business integration and 
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).

Besides supporting ebXML Messaging Service (ebMS) and Applicability 
Specification 2 (AS2), H2O will provide additional tools and a full set 
of documentation to make configuration, and administration even more 
easily. The new release will include an installation wizard, web-based 
GUI admin tool, message status query capabilities, and documentation of 
an installation guide, configuration guide, admin tool user guide as 
well as the plug-in development guide.

H2O and its source code will be released under GNU General Public 
License Version 2 <http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html>. Users and 
developers can get community support through the mailing list 
cecid-hermes2@googlegroups.com <mailto:cecid-hermes2@googlegroups.com>.

Completed the AS2 Interoperability Testing AS-1Q05 with 29 other 
participants (http://ebusinessready.org/as2.html) organized by U.S. 
leading testing company, Drummond Group Inc., Hermes 2 enables real-time 
communication through HTTP or HTTPS to transmit data over the Internet. 
Besides, it provides security for the transport payload through Secure 
Multi-Purpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME), digital signatures and 
encryption, while reliability and non-repudiation are achieved through 
the use of receipts.

The AS2 standard, commonly used in supply chains by large retailers, 
manufacturers and suppliers, is often regarded as the “EDI over 
Internet” standard. Hermes 2 facilitates large as well as small 
enterprises to exchange EDI or other business-to-business data with 
their partners and customers. It operates as a Java web application. The 
ebXML Messaging Service (ebMS) and AS2 messaging capabilities are 
facilitated by the corresponding plugins, which can be easily developed 
by users through Hermes’ Simple Plugin Architecture specification. The 
messaging operation requires a database with JDBC connectivity to keep 
track of the messaging status.

*About CECID* (www.cecid.hku.hk <http://www.cecid.hku.hk/index.php>)
Established in January 2002, Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure 
Development (CECID) at the University of Hong Kong conducts e-commerce 
research and development with the vision of helping organizations 
increase their competitiveness in the global economy. CECID develops 
e-commerce enabling technologies, participates in important 
international e-commerce initiatives, as well as supports e-commerce 
standardization for Hong Kong and the Asia Pacific Region. With projects 
primarily funded by the Hong Kong Government's Innovation and Technology 
Commission, CECID also takes on the mission to transfer knowledge and 
technology to the community. Besides organizing forums and seminars, the 
Center licenses its R&D results through the University of Hong Kong to 
IT industry. Its acclaimed e-commerce technology, Hermes, has penetrated 
over 80 economies and won the Best Infrastructure and Communication 
Application of the Linux Business Award 2005 as well as Certificates of 
Merit of the Asia-Pacific ICT Awards 2004 and HK Computer Society IT 
Excellence Award 2004.

*PR Contacts for Press and Analysts*
Dorris Tai (cwtai@cecid.hku.hk <mailto:cwtai@cecid.hku.hk>)
Business Manager
Center for E-Commerce Infrastructure Development (CECID)
Dept. of Computer Science
The University of Hong Kong
Tel: +852 2859 2818
Fax: +852 2547 4611
URL: http://www.cecid.hku.hk <http://www.cecid.hku.hk/index.php>