Trading Networks Overview 

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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 Trading Networks Overview 

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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 Trading Networks Overview 

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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 Trading Networks Overview 

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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 Trading Networks Overview 

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 eai.architects@gmail.com

 Trading Networks Overview 

Prepared by Narendra Thota eai.architects@gmail.com