Hands on with BIT EME-CE’s Managed File Transfer

Installation was quick and easy. Following the BIT’s Quick Start guide, downloaded the zip file bit-eme-ce-1.0.2.zip. Unzipping the file created two folders, each for EME-CE and Protocol Proxy.

My installation structure:
C:\ bit-eme-ce-1.0.2\ eme-ce-1.0.2
C:\ bit-eme-ce-1.0.2\ protocol-proxy-ce-1.0.2

Pre-requisite for EME is JDK 1.5+. When EME starts, it refers to the environment variable JAVA_HOME. JAVA_HOME should point to a valid installed JDK root folder.

Started the Protocol Proxy service first through the start script C:\bit-eme-ce-1.0.2\protocol-proxy-ce-1.0.2\bin\startup.bat.

Next, started the EME service through the start script C:\bit-eme-ce-1.0.2\eme-ce-1.0.2\eme.bat. This is a wrapper to start the Mule.

Protocol Proxy starts the Tomcat web server and FTP server. EME starts the Mule ESB Server, Derby Database on port 1528, Jetty Web Server on port 8888 and ActiveMQ JMS Server.

EME connects to Protocol Proxy during its start up to load the MFT agents. It throws exceptions if it cannot connect to Protocol Proxy.

EME provides browser based interfaces for administration, configuring trading partners, translations, and viewing messages, etc.

The below lists the URLs hosted on the localhost with default ports:

Admin login to EME:
URL: http://localhost:8888/
Login name: admin
Password: password

EME Admin console has features to:
View the status of the Derby, Jetty and JMS services that were started along with EME
View the messages that were transacted with the Trading Partners
View the event log to monitor the errors
To create and manage Trading Partners, setting the profiles and XSLT based message translations
Create Users for EME and manage the ACL for Users

Admin interface to Protocol Proxy:
URL: http://localhost:80/proxy-admin
Login name: eme
Password: password

Protocol Proxy Admin console has features to create Trading Partner users for mainly for testing purposes, limiting to dropping files off and picking files up from Protocol Proxy, without actually being allowed into the enterprise/into firewall, where EME runs.

Trading Partner interface to Protocol Proxy:
URL: http://localhost:80/proxy-portal
Login Name:
Password:

Trading Partner console allows the Trading Partners to send or receive transactions via files with EME either in Binary or ASCII format.

Trading Partners can transact with EME either via the Trading Partner interface to Protocol Proxy over HTTP or over FTP.

When a new Trading Partner is created in EME, a set of folders are created as part of Managed File Transfer feature. By default, EME polls the Proxy for new messages from Trading Partners for every 60 seconds. EME CE reads files from and writes files to directories in the default setup for Managed File Transfer.

{BIT_EME_CE_HOME}/eme-ce-{version}/MFT//in
{BIT_EME_CE_HOME}/eme-ce-{version}/MFT//out

After the start-up, logged into EME Admin console and created a new Trading Partner by the name TP1. Enabled the flag that links the integration for this trading partner between EME and Protocol Proxy.

Logged into Trading Partner Console as TP1. Uploaded a test file with the file name “from_tp1_to_eme.txt” using the Upload.

EME in its schedule poll from Proxy retrieved the file from TP1 and moved it to MFT folder under C:\ bit-eme-ce-1.0.2\ eme-ce-1.0.2\MFT\TP1\in. The file was also listed in the EME Admin console under Messages tab with a link to download.

Next, logged into Protocol Proxy Admin console, and uploaded a file to TP1.


EME transmitted the file “from_eme_to_tp1.txt” to TP1. The file from EME was visible on the Proxy Portal for TP1 to view and retrieve, as well as on the FTP.

Observations:

1. EME has a lot of potential. With its Managed File Transfer, support for various protocols, message translation capabilities the possibilities are endless.

2. The HTTP(S) wrapper to the trading partners to do the standard FTP operations of file upload and download worked right out of the box. Managed File Transfer allows monitoring and controlling of messages in one place. The Message Viewer with its filtering options has potential to view historical transactions and its status. I have not yet explored further to understand the options for purging old messages along with its tranactional data.

3. Tested uploading files with varying sizes through the Proxy Portal using the TP login, starting with few kilo bytes and up to 2 mega bytes and these got transferred to EME flawlessly. However it failed to move a file with 3 MB with an exception at Mule level while reading the file from the trading partner. This test was run on Intel Duo 2.53Ghz with 4 GB RAM on Windows XP.

4. On the Proxy Portal for a TP User, the link “Outbox” lists the messages received from EME, and the link “Inbox” lists the messages sent to EME. The names seem to have interchanged. Inbox from TP perspective should relate to messages arriving to TP. Outbox for messages sent by TP.

5. EME Admin console and Proxy Portal UI is fairly simple and basic.

6. It would be helpful if the audit messages displayed in EME Admin console can be customizable. The search feature to list messages in the EME Admin console between the date ranges did not return correct values.

7. The Trading Partner or User management is limited. There is no option to delete trading partners or users. The available option is to turn off the ‘enabled’ flag.
I have not yet tested the message translation or Protocol Proxy deployment on HTTPS. There is a support for XSLT based translations. As well as supports HTTPS by means of configuring Tomcat for SSL. However, the current version does not provide secure FTP.


Response from BIT mentioned that they have recently tested the newest version and successfully transmitted files up to 1+ gigabytes. The newer version would also provide interface to customize audit messages to track the activities in the EME Admin console, and other enhancements. The 'Outbox' and 'Inbox' labels in Proxy Protocol is something customizable when implemented in a organization.

The new release version 1.1 is scheduled for the first of week of May 2010. Will have to wait for it to try it out...