eDelivery in Europe & Beyond with webMethods AS4 eDelivery Conformant Solution

eDelivery in Europe & Beyond with webMethods AS4 eDelivery Conformant Solution

The European Union’s Vision

The European Union’s vision of a greener and Digital Europe has launched the “Digital Europe Programme(DEP)” with a total budget of 7.59 billion euros, focused on bringing digital technology to businesses, citizens, and public administrations.

It will build digital capacities and infrastructures and support the goal of creating a digital single market. It will be implemented mainly through coordinated and strategic co-investment with Member States in the areas of advanced computing and data, artificial intelligence and cyber-security, their uptake and optimal use in the private and public sectors, and the promotion of advanced digital literacy.

Source: © EC DG CNECT 2021 Digital Europe Programme presentation

How is the EU doing this?

The European Union Member States use their national-level solutions for digital services, and this lack of common European Standards impedes trade and cross-border cooperation among authorities. The European Commission has launched a number of digital building blocks and exchange standards under the title Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).

The Digital Building Blocks

A Building Block is an open and reusable digital solution. It can take the shape of a framework, a standard, a software, or a software as a service (SaaS), or any combination thereof.

Building Blocks are endorsed by the European Commission and ensure that your digital service will be fully compatible with others on the market.

The list of digital building blocks are

  • eDelivery Exchange electronic data and documents in an interoperable and secure way**
  • eID Offer services capable of electronically identifying users across Europe
  • eSignature Create and verify electronic, paperless signatures
  • eInvoicing Send and receive electronic invoices with automated processing, in line with the European standard
  • Once-Only Technical System (OOTS) Reduce administrative burden on citizens and businesses
    and more…

The digital arm of the Connecting Europe Facility Programme (CEF Digital) (2014-2020) has supported the adoption and reuse of digital building blocks in public and private projects and services on a continental scale. These building blocks make it easier to interconnect complex digital services and IT systems across Europe, and so support the EU’s twin green and digital transitions.

The EU supports the new standards by introducing legislation on their use to ensure that the CEF eDelivery standards meet the requirements of eIDAS (the EU directive on digital identification).

What is eDelivery?

The eDelivery building block of Digital Europe proposes the use of the AS4 messaging protocol to create a secure channel for the transmission of documents and data by electronic means, over the internet, or via a private network. AS4 protects the transmitted data against the risk of loss, theft, damage, or any un-authorised alterations and provides digitally signed evidence that serves as an acknowledgment of receipt of the transmitted data. Projects use eDelivery to exchange documents and data in a secure way among many participants (within Europe and beyond).

An eDelivery network is a network of nodes in which each node is a server operating software conformant with the AS4 messaging protocol. The nodes are known as AS4 Access Points. eDelivery networks are usually project or domain specific; no general-purpose eDelivery network exists. A participant in a given project must connect their business application to an AS4 Access Point that is part of the project’s eDelivery network.

To achieve this, the participant either sets up its own AS4 Access Point and receives permission to join the network or connects via a service provider who is already established as part of the network. Each node in a network can independently configure which other nodes can send it messages, usually following project-wide rules that govern the network configuration.

An eDelivery network is easily scalable to accommodate thousands of nodes. The use of a common protocol enables interoperability across heterogeneous business applications, as they simply need to connect to the AS4 Access Point to start exchanging data with the other participants of the project.

eDelivery How it Works?

Source: © eDelivery Leaflet @ European Commission Website @
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/wikis/display/DIGITAL/eDelivery

Why eDelivery?

eDelivery enables public administrations to exchange electronic data and documents securely across Government (Public sector entities and agencies), Business(Private sector entities), and Citizens.

  • Enables public administrations and businesses to engage in cross-border data exchange using a common
    solution based on open standards.

  • Facilitates interoperability as the same technology can be reused in multiple sectors and use cases.

  • Makes it easier for services and software providers to support a growing market.

Benefits of eDelivery?

Source: © eDelivery Leaflet @ European Commission Website @
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/wikis/display/DIGITAL/eDelivery

eDelivery Who Can Benefit?

eDelivery Adoption & Industry Sectors

According to available monitoring data, by the end of Q1 2021, eDelivery was being used by 39 multi-country projects, with another 25 being in the process of implementing it in more than 497 projects across a wide range of sectors across many domains. Few to quote:

  • Customs Safety and Security regulation Import Control System 2 (ICS 2), a critical EU-system supporting the implementation of customs safety and security regulatory regime, uses eDelivery to provide economic operators with a single harmonized trader interface with the customs authorities. ISC 2 uses TAPAS, an eDelivery Access Point for AS4, through which all the data about the goods entering the EU is received.

  • Company Law are:, the Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS) and the Beneficial Ownership Registers Interconnection System (BORIS) connect the EU Member States’ national registers to each other and with the European Commission Central Platform using eDelivery Access Points.

  • eProcurement, OpenPeppol relies on eDelivery to enable European businesses to easily deal electronically with any European public sector buyers in their procurement processes, thereby increasing opportunities for greater competition for government contracts and providing better value for taxpayers’ money.

  • Justice domain, a number of projects rely on e-CODEX – a European digital infrastructure for secure cross-border communication in the field of justice, which uses eDelivery for secure information exchange.

  • eGovernance of the Inland Waterways Transport (IWT) sector, contributing to the implementation of a Single Digital Gateway and Once-Only Principle in everything that regards data on IWT crew (the European Crew Database Project ) and

  • Few more in Government & Public Sector in various administrations across Europe like The European Union eJustice Portal, Online Dispute Resolution, European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas (ENTSOG), European public procurement market, e-IMPACT/ eFreight, Portugal, iADAATPA, Spain, European cross-border e-invoice in local public procurement, Poland, etc…

eDelivery Sectors of Reuse

Uptake

webMethods AS4 Module?

webMethods AS4 module with the Industry Leading webMethods B2B platform provides the ability to facilitate the secure exchange of messages, independent of payload type, across your trading network.

eDelivery with AS4 Module - How?

  • webMethods AS4 Module supports eDelivery AS4 profile using the built-in/out-of-the-box assets and services like the Trading Partner Agreement, the services to send and receive messages between Public sector entities and agencies, private sector entities like the in the area of eProcurement Peppol. For more information refer to: webMethods AS4 Module Documentation.

  • webMethods AS4 Module is offered with webMethods.io B2B Cloud the B2B AS A SERVICE edition and also with webMethods B2B ON PREM edition.

Why webMethods AS4 Module?

  • webMethods B2B platform is the industry leading B2B platform for more than 20+ years, thousands of customers, powering 15+ Billion B2B exchanges.

  • webMethods AS4 Module over the years is being used in various industry sectors like Government, Energy, Utilities, Manufacturing, Transport, Logistics, IT, Food & Beverages, etc… by Fortune 500 customers across the world.

  • webMethods AS4 Module support the wide variety of AS4 profiles like ebHandler, ENTSOG(European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas), eDelivery, Peppol.

  • webMethods AS4 Module is a certified eDelivery provider and is certified by eDelivery European Union technical arm Connecting Europe Facility Programme (CEF). @ https://ec.europa.eu/digital-building-blocks/wikis/display/DIGITAL/eDelivery+AS4+conformant+solutions


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