How to set up eDelivery?

In the set-up phase, you:

• select a solution,
• deploy it,
• integrate it, with backend and with partner.

Select a solution

At this stage, you select your eDelivery solutions. You have three options.

• Re-use. You re-use a conformant open-source solution, available for free and already adopted by other projects or domains. In this case, you may have to customise or extend the features of the solutions to fill some gaps with your current architecture or to better suit your needs. CEF eDelivery provides sample software for Access Point, SML and SMPDomiSMP.
• Buy. You purchase a solution from a vendor offering conformant solutions. In case additional features may be needed, you will have to require an extension to your chosen vendor. CEF eDelivery maintains a list of commercial and open-source solutions that have passed CEF's eDelivery conformance testing, and are are conformant to the e-SENS eDelivery AS4 profile (for Access Points), or the OASIS SMP profile (for SMP)
• Build. You custom build your solution following the technical specifications. In this case you can leverage on your internal know-how, or hire professionals, to develop a solution from scratch based on the available technical specifications. CEF eDelivery offers conformance testing services in case you decide to develop your own solution and are willing to become conformant. CEF eDelivery maintains a list of the specifications for for Access Point, Connector, SML and SMP.

For all scenarios, CEF eDelivery offers a a service desk that can answer the most common questions, and training and deployment services in in case you decide to re-use CEF eDelivery’s sample implementations.

Deploy a solution

In the deploy phase, you take care of configuring and exposing your Access Point and Service Metadata published to other participants.

After configuring the different components of your infrastructure (including firewalls, proxy, etc.), and making sure you are reachable by other parties, you distribute your configuration and certificates to the other network participants.

Each participant needs to agree on the configuration, and needs to apply it. Participants are responsible for the configuration of their own environment.

Integrate 

Following the deployment of your components, you start integrating with your backend and with other participants.

• Integrate with own backend – to integrate the different eDelivery components with your backend, you may use default interfaces, or you may need custom plugins. In this case, you can custom build them or purchase them from a service provider.
• Integrate with participants – integration with other parties is performed by testing if you can send messages to them. Alternatively, the CEF eDelivery support team offers a a connectivity testing services to validate the successful set-up of your solution. At this stage, you will be able to detect issues or bugs, such as a faulty firewall configuration or certificates not recognised. Each participant is responsible to perform these tests for their part.