eDelivery gearing up to support the digitalisation of European logistics
On 27 February, the eDelivery team took part in the 4th meeting of the Digital Transport and Trade Facilitation Committee (DTTF) on electronic Freight Transport Information (eFTI). DG MOVE, DIGIT and Member States’ representatives gathered to discuss the progress towards the adoption of the first eFTI implementing act on common rules, procedures and technical specifications to be implemented by the Member States. The meeting participants also discussed the proposed architecture for the overall eFTI exchange environment, its components, and options for their technical implementation.
The eDelivery team used the opportunity to showcase the added value of eDelivery for eFTI. The team presented two possible scenarios, in which eDelivery could be used either between eFTI Gates, or between eFTI Gates and Platforms.
The use of eDelivery between eFTI gates would bring a set of benefits, among which:
- Tried and tested open specification for the message format and message exchange protocol (OASIS, ISO);
- Network infrastructure based on open standards;
- PKI-based authentication and authorization of eFTI Gates;
- Message integrity and confidentiality based on digital signatures and asymmetric encryption;
- Auditing and tracing for the message exchange.
An extended use of eDelivery (between both eFTI gates and eFTI platforms) would bring additional benefits on top of the ones listed above, such as:
- Reduced complexity, as the eFTI gate would use the same protocol for the two interfaces (national and cross-border);
- Ability for dynamic discovery of eFTI platforms and trust establishment for the network;
- Simplified management of large (national) network;
- Ready-to-use model, specifications and software for authentication and authorization of the eFTI Platforms and audit and tracing for the national message exchanges.
DG MOVE highly recommended the use of eDelivery for eFTI; the decision about it will be taken in the next meetings of the DTTF committee.
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The eDelivery Building Block
eDelivery is a building block that provides technical specifications and standards, installable software and ancillary services to allow projects to create a network of nodes for secure digital data exchange.
Domibus is the sample software provided by the European Commission to implement an eDelivery AS4 Access Point for the interoperable, secure and reliable exchange of data. It is based on the eDelivery AS4 profile, an open technical specification for the secure, web-based, payload-agnostic exchange of data or documents.
DomiSMP is the sample software provided by the European Commission to implement an eDelivery Service Metadata Publisher for publishing and retrieving data necessary for an eDelivery party to dynamically configure its system for message exchange with counterparties using eDelivery. It is based on the eDelivery SMP profile, an open technical specification for publishing service metadata within a 4-corner network.
DomiSML is the sample software provided by the European Commission to implement an eDelivery Service Metadata Locator for an eDelivery party to discover the URLs of other counterparties using eDelivery Access Points and their corresponding metadata. It is based on the eDelivery BDXL profile, an open technical specification for locating Access Points within a network, and on the PEPPOL SML Specification, a technical specification defining a BDXL administration API.
Image by the eDelivery SMCO