eDelivery Documentation

Message exchange

In the 4 corner model, backend systems (corners one and four) do not exchange messages directly with each other but via Access Points (corners two and three) that, in any given exchange, play the sender or receiver role.

The Access Points of eDelivery are not operated centrally, instead, they are deployed in the Member States under the responsibility of a public or private sector service provider.

The users of the Access Points are the Backend systems that need to exchange information with other administrations or businesses across borders.

During the exchange, the data and documents are secured by eDelivery's trust establishment mechanisms. This implies a choice of trust establishment model.

Which components are involved

Component

Access Point - The access points of eDelivery implement a standardised message exchange protocol which ensures secure and reliable data exchange.

Standard

eDelivery profile of the ebMS3 and AS4 OASIS Standards

More info about the Access Point specifications are available here.

Message exchange, what are the benefits 

Interoperability

• You can exchange documents and/ or data using a standardised messaging protocols other than e-mail
• You can exchange attachments in addition to messages (XML documents)
• You can execute asynchronous request-response interactions

Security

• You are certain that data and documents are secured against any modification (integrity)
• You are certain that documents are encrypted during transmission (confidentiality).
• You are certain that the origin and the destination of the data and documents are trustworthy

Scalability Performance

• You can exchange documents and data files larger than 50 Mb
• You are certain you can handle increasing messaging loads in a day, hour, etc.

Legal Assurance & Accountability

• You have the guarantee that data and documents are delivered once and only once (retries, receipts, duplicate elimination)
• You are certain that messages are delivered even if sent to temporarily unavailable channels (store and forward)
• You are certain of the non-repudiation of receipt and/or origin of every exchange through signature