ECGrid: The New Value Added Service  

After recognizing the frustration incurred by VANs and Trading Partners alike in establishing, supporting and tracking interconnect traffic, Loren Data Corp. built the first standardized VAN interconnect infrastructure three years ago: ECGrid.

ECGrid is a service currently available to all VANs which substantially improves interconnect reliability and accountability, introduces proactive reporting and interactive tracking, and extends EDI reach to all Trading Partners.

Improved Interconnect Service

Imagine if your local phone service operated like VAN Interconnects:

I’m sorry, we don’t connect with US West. Please have them contact us to open a new account. I’m sorry, it is not “strategic” for us to connect with Bell Atlantic. Your call cannot go through. I’m sorry, we have an outage with Ameritec. We’ll call them and get back to you. I’m sorry, we keep dropping calls to Pacific Bell. I’m not sure what the problem is. I’m sorry, all the calls to Verizon are garbled, it is their fault. We don’t know when it will be resolved.

Interconnects need to be as reliable as long distance telephone calls, with tracking as detailed as a FedEx shipment. Transactions need to be delivered to ANY trading partner’s VAN. Tracking must be maintained for ALL transactions. Interconnects must be reliable, secure and trouble free.

It’s your data, it’s your Trading Partner, and it’s your money. You deserve better. Now you can get it. ECGrid: the new value added service for Interconnects.

Technology and Security  

ECGrid is a mission critical Value Added Network for VANs. Our architecture and protocols have been extensively examined by the largest VANs, and have been found to be technically superior to any other system available.

With ECGrid, VANs reroute their interconnect traffic over a common network, allowing them to discard the legacy peer-to-peer systems that are no longer economically viable, nor reliable enough for their customers.

Just as a VAN allows a company to normalize its connectivity with all its trading partners, ECGrid allows all VANs to interconnect equally reliably with all other VANs.

Extending Interconnect Reach  

Most large VANs require small VANs to conform to expensive, often archaic, but reliable communication protocols, while some will not connect with smaller VANs at all. Small VANs request lower cost, modern protocols but they themselves are often unable to comply with basic industry standards.

Async, BiSync, X.25, SNA, Leased, Dial-Up, 3780, Dial & Dump, IP, FTP, SMTP, VPN, IPSec, Frame Relay, ASCII, EBCDIC, X12.56

The varied assortment of protocols, procedures, and systems required to operate every legacy VAN-to-VAN interconnect consumes a disproportionate allocation of technical resources from each VAN. While standards exist for all aspects of interconnects configuration, none have been applied universally nor have any been implemented uniformly.

Benefits for Trading Partners  

Tracking

From the moment a transaction is posted to the ECGrid infrastructure, it is tracked tenaciously. Similar to the way FedEx logs every step of your shipment from door to door, ECGrid follows your transactions.

Every interchange that enters the system is expected to progress through the system in an orderly and timely manner. The ECGrid expert system follows each interchange from entrance to exit and automatically notifies all parties involved when any anomaly occurs.

Reporting

Detailed reports may be interactively generated for any interchange or mailbag, allowing both Trading Partners and VANs to know the status of any transaction within the ECGrid infrastructure at a moment’s notice.

Accountability

As an independent third-party service provider, ECGrid is only paid for successfully delivered interchanges. We want to deliver your interchange to the other VAN as much as you want it to get there. Our common desire makes us your ally for interconnect traffic.

The ECGrid Solution  

ECGrid embodies a centralized, distributed processing design to provide a managed Interconnect infrastructure. It is the only service specifically developed for VAN interconnects, bringing a higher degree of efficiency and service to Trading Partners and VANs.

Central to ECGrid is a unique “Manifest” which maintains detailed tracking and routing data about each Interconnect transaction. The Manifest database contains rules against which reporting, alerts, and notifications can be obtained, providing proactive monitoring of Interconnect operations.

Users can obtain current status in real-time via secure website reporting, displaying node status, mailbag status, and detailed mailbag manifest logs. This self-service feature significantly reduces issue resolutions time, while introducing a mechanism for potential issue avoidance

ECGrid substantially improves interconnect reliability:

• Mission-critical fault tolerance with high availability: No single point of failure. Registry and manifest repositories are replicated throughout ECGrid on to all nodes, maximizing system uptime in the event of any failure.

• Distributed processing with centralized management: Enables rapid trouble resolution without a single point of failure.

• Automated reporting: Proactive mailbag tracking, exception processing and notification capabilities are enabled through mailbag manifest metadata, retained in the manifest.

• Self-Service: Web-based administrative interface enables VAN network operations personnel to set configuration parameters and maintain account information directly.

  ECGrid® The Interconnect Problem: Solved For Trading Partners