Implementing WebSphere Business Integration Express for Item Synchronization

Chapter 4. iSoft Peer-to-Peer Agent 33

Figure 4-1 Inbound and outbound communication options

4.2 Data integrity and security characteristics

Since the P2PAgent program is designed to move business critical data over a

public network, it is required that the agent support several techniques to protect

your data.

If configured to do so, the agent will encrypt the data using the certificate of the

target partner. This means that only the target partner can read the document,

since only the target partner is supposed to have access to the private key to

decrypt the document. As such, this guarantees confidentiality. The agent

supports the encryption algorithms RC2 and Triple DES. For additional data

integrity, you can request to use base64 encoding.

As a receiver of a document, you want to be sure that the document has been

sent by the trading partner that you expect. The sending partner can digitally sign

the document using its private key. As a receiver, you can verify the signature

using the certificate of the sender. The agent supports two digital signature

algorithms: SHA-1 and MD5. Both can be combined with base64 encoding, if

requested.

As a sender of a document, you want to have proof that the receiver has received

the document and that only he has received it. The sender can request a receipt,

sometimes referred to as an

MDN (message disposition notification). Receipts

Internet

HTTP(s)

SMTP

P2P Agent

WebSphere

MQ

File System

HTTP

e-mail