Assured delivery for B2B web services: hub-and-spoke use pattern
In this use pattern, a manufacturer is looking for more than the ability to conduct transactions electronically with a fixed set of partners; the manufacturer needs a service that provides visibility to their inventory levels, so that the suppliers can manage their own product and inventory levels accordingly.
The manufacturer has many suppliers - around 2000 major suppliers and 250,000 other suppliers - and the set of supplier companies with which they do business is constantly changing.
The existing technical solution
The manufacturer currently has a custom-built supplier purchasing system. The system provides a trading hub into which suppliers can integrate, and a supplier portal that enables suppliers to continue with their (largely manual) existing processes. The interactions fall into three tiers:
- Tier one: XML message exchanges.
- Tier two: FTP and similar tools.
- Tier three: Fax.
Tiers one and two are conducted over a combination of leased lines and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).
The business problem
The custom purchasing system has had disappointing take-up by the suppliers, and as a result the manufacturer continues to face large costs associated with the manual processes that it still uses with the vast majority of its suppliers. A major barrier to adoption of the new system by suppliers has been the cost of integrating supplier systems with the trading hub.
The current solution also has costs for the manufacturers. In particular, the use of leased lines is expensive, and the use of VPNs is difficult to manage when scaled to a large number of suppliers.
The solution when using WS-ReliableMessaging
By using WSDL to describe the services, and using web services standards to implement the services, you reduce the costs incurred by the manufacturer and suppliers:
- The prevalence of support for web services amongst diverse software vendors makes it easier and cheaper for suppliers to exploit this technology.
- The familiarity of the developer community with web services technologies (and WSDL in particular), and the rich tool support, means that the use of WSDL-described messages make the message schemas easier to use in the context of web services.
- WS-ReliableMessaging is used to ensure that messages are reliably delivered, and duplicate messages are eliminated.
- Web Services Security technologies enable secure interactions across the Internet, without requiring leased lines and VPNs.
Related:
Assured delivery for B2B web services: point-to-point use pattern Interoperation with other WS-ReliableMessaging providers: use pattern WS-ReliableMessaging Add assured delivery to web services through WS-ReliableMessaging Detect and fix problems with WS-ReliableMessaging