Re: multi-hop requirement

["William J. Kammerer" <wkammerer@foresightcorp.com>]

Henry Lowe said TR&P identified support of SMEs (which may well only
have a browser and/or e-mail) as requiring multi-hop.  If that were so,
then the SME wouldn't have a Message Service Handler (MSH), would they?
All the diagrams describing multi-hop in Message Service Specification
0.91 explicitly show that each party has a MSH (which I assume is
something more than a browser or Outlook Express).  Even Burdett's
Multi-Hop Reliable Messaging Use Cases imply more than that, though it
never mentions "MSH" - referring to "Hubs" instead, which in my mind
conjures up VANs or outfits like Viacore.

If multi-hop support is necessary for implementation through VANs, then
it is indeed something very important that perhaps BizTalk has
completely overlooked, and RosettaNet is only belatedly addressing.
Considering that VAN acknowledgements and interconnect were such a rats'
nests in EDI (both X12 and EDIFACT), it probably would be prudent to do
a careful job with multi-hop in ebXML.

On the other hand, if all this multi-hop stuff is just for supporting
SMEs going through a portal, aren't there are simpler models for
effecting this?  I can think of one - FORESIGHT's TradeSite, and to be
ecumenical, any number of other services and products to do the same.

William J. Kammerer
FORESIGHT Corp.
4950 Blazer Memorial Pkwy.
Dublin, OH USA 43017-3305
+1 614 791-1600

Visit FORESIGHT Corp. at http://www.foresightcorp.com/
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