eDelivery in OpenPeppol's eInvoicing & eProcurement Conference

OpenPeppol held its eInvoicing & eProcurement Conference on 29 & 30 May in Brussels. The goal of the gathering was to hear from representatives of different institutions and businesses about the perspectives that eInvoicing is facing due to new regulations and tax rules.

Bogdan Dumitriu, European Commission's DG DIGIT policy officer in charge of eDelivery implementation, took the floor on the conference's second day. His session was part of the block titled "The four-corner model – developments and new use cases".

Peppol architecture

eDelivery's presentation was preceded by a session from Klaus Vilstrup, chief architect at OpenPeppol, who spoke about the challenges service providers face in eInvoicing. He described the Peppol Network's journey from its early pilot days to its current mature state. A key part of this evolution was establishing strong governance and mature specifications, both technical and business.

Klaus highlighted the effectiveness of the four-corner model within the Peppol ecosystem. However, they are now considering adding a fifth corner to automate regulatory data submission, reducing the burden on businesses. Peppol's projected fifth-corner model was one of the highlights of Lefteris Leontaridis's talk during the last eDelivery Informal Cooperation Network meeting (for details on the head of the Peppol Operating Office's session, see our summary from the event).

Going back to the opening session of "The four-corner model – developments and new use cases" block at the eInvoicing & eProcurement Conference, Klaus Vilstrup acknowledged the technical debt accumulated over time, which is normal for growing systems. Steps are being taken to address this debt, such as adopting SMP 2.0 and assuming responsibility for critical infrastructure. He additionally communicated that OpenPeppol is collaborating with stakeholders, including the European Commission, to define a new model for Peppol SML discovery.

eDelivery's presentation

Our presentation was titled "Critical infrastructure and the future of eDelivery". During the session, Bogdan discussed eDelivery's Service Metadata Locator (SML), a vital component of Peppol's infrastructure, as well as the status of eDelivery and the other European Commission's Building Blocks as fundamental for secure and reliable data exchange across European digital ecosystems.

Bogdan spoke about the evolution of eDelivery, noting its significant role in supporting Peppol's network, particularly in the transition from AS2 to AS4 protocols, which enhance security and efficiency. The widespread use of eDelivery within Peppol also underscores the Building Block's capabilities to manage a large number of participants.

As always, it was worth to emphasise that eDelivery supports various digital services by providing a scalable and payload-agnostic solution, meaning it can handle different types of data and workflows without needing major adjustments. Bogdan pointed out that eDelivery's robust security features, such as encryption and reliable message delivery, make it a trusted solution for projects.

eDelivery's standardised message-exchange API, based on OASIS/ISO ebMS3/AS4, ensures interoperability across different domains and projects by using a common protocol. Bogdan concluded by highlighting eDelivery's role in promoting interoperability, scalability and efficiency, thereby ensuring seamless communication and data exchange across Europe's digital ecosystems.

eDelivery's presentation slides are available on the event page here.

eDelivery Building Block

eDelivery is a Building Block provided by the European Commission, offering technical specifications, installable software and services for secure digital data exchange across a network of nodes.

The eDelivery SML service uses DNS (Domain Name System) lookup to find information concerning a given participant in a message exchange network. This approach does not need a single, central server to run the discovery interface (with its associated single point of failure). Instead, the use of the DNS makes it highly resilient. At runtime, the SML uses decentralised DNS for load balancing of requests, thus supporting a full European-wide up-scaling of performance. Since eDelivery interfaces with the global DNS system, the SML can virtually operate 24/7/365. In case of failure, participants would still be able to discover each other based on the information stored on the DNS.

The current eDelivery SML Service is based on the sample implementation of the SML software maintained by the European Commission.

Stay tuned for the latest updates on eDelivery services by checking the Building Block's X and web page. For more information, do not hesitate to register for personalised news or contact us via our portal or by email: EC-EDELIVERY-SUPPORT@ec.europa.eu.