EDI Interoperability

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Implementing a traditional EDI system requires a high level of customization and integration. Many companies have created EDI systems for doing business with their trading partners. These systems, while a pain to deploy and manage, are generally respected by companies that use them.

To a company that is happy with its existing (and working) EDI implementation, the prospect of dumping it and moving to XML and BizTalk might not be desirable. However, to close off the possibility of doing business with the many (usually large) companies that employ EDI is to close off a lot of potential business. For this reason, your BizTalk server should be able to create and accept EDI transactions. Doing so might be as simple as creating a map for transforming EDI documents to and from BizTalk documents or as complex as writing a subsystem that can understand EDI and communicate with your BizTalk document.