I was tasked to check out the feasibility of doing inhouse EDI, as the 3rd party costs are getting out of hand.
In doing web searches on the subject, there is a lot of info about the various documents types and formats and creating them from XML or database files. This looks pretty straightforward. However, I don't see much on the subject of the server to server communication.
The question is, what does it take to set up such as server? I am looking for a 3rd party component that I can run on a Windows server as a server (I see it like as IIS server which just sits there and waits for incoming connections and then does the handshake and accepts the file.) The only thing I have found so far is that MS BizTalk server includes EDI capability.
I have also found Edidev.com which has an AS2 server which looks like it might fit the bill.
I am completely new to this area, and don't want to miss anything important.
Most traditional EDI software houses have "enterprise" scale integration options that run on (as) a server. Gentran, TrustedLink, BizTalk..all names that are in that space and are usually a sizable (expensive) investment.
What I use here is Liaison's Delta (translation) and ECS (communication). Both run as client / server. The translation software is a true Windows drag / drop any-to-any mapper that can handle all integration scenarios. This commercial software would run you around $20k. We are currently supporting well over 100 trading partners, doing about 3000 batches of data per day. The system is integrated with our ERP and not only handles EDI but XML, flat file, CSV data as well. Delta and ECS. You might be interested in reading this: My Case Study
If you have your own translation engine (parser) and just want a piece for communication, you can still check out ECS, Cleo Lexicom, or Axway. All have Managed File Transfer solutions that will work for you, and run as a Windows service.
So our server handles AS2 communication, picks up files on schedules, sends data via FTP and FTPs, handles web services via HTTP, and has client utilities to show data coming in and out of the system. It also automatically generates the 997 for inbound transactions. Setup of ECS is very easy. Learning a translator - any translator - can be a daunting task. There are quirks to every one of them. That's where the time will be invested in.