AS4
Encyclopedia
AS4 is a Conformance Profile of the OASIS ebMS 3.0
specification, and represents an open standard
for the secure and payload-agnostic exchange of Business-to-business
documents using Web services. Secure document exchange is governed by aspects of WS-Security
, including XML Encryption
and XML Digital Signatures. Payload agnosticism refers to the document type (e.g. purchase order, invoice, etc) not being tied to any defined SOAP action or operation.
The draft AS4 profile has recently been accepted by the OASIS ebXML Messaging Services Technical Committee and has been submitted to OASIS for public review. The majority of the AS4 profiling points constraining the ebMS 3.0 specification are based upon the functional requirements of the AS2
specification. By scaling back ebMS 3.0 by using AS2 as a blueprint, AS4 provides an entry-level on-ramp for Web services B2B by simplifying the complexities of Web services.
EbXML Messaging Services
ebXML Messaging Services is a standard under the E-Business XML umbrella which provides a secure and reliable SOAP / Web Services based transport protocol to the ebXML Architecture....
specification, and represents an open standard
Open standard
An open standard is a standard that is publicly available and has various rights to use associated with it, and may also have various properties of how it was designed . There is no single definition and interpretations vary with usage....
for the secure and payload-agnostic exchange of Business-to-business
Business-to-business
Business-to-business describes commerce transactions between businesses, such as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler, or between a wholesaler and a retailer...
documents using Web services. Secure document exchange is governed by aspects of WS-Security
WS-Security
WS-Security is a flexible and feature-rich extension to SOAP to apply security to web services. It is a member of the WS-* family of web service specifications and was published by OASIS....
, including XML Encryption
XML Encryption
XML Encryption, also known as XML-Enc, is a specification, governed by a W3C recommendation, that defines how to encrypt the contents of an XML element....
and XML Digital Signatures. Payload agnosticism refers to the document type (e.g. purchase order, invoice, etc) not being tied to any defined SOAP action or operation.
The draft AS4 profile has recently been accepted by the OASIS ebXML Messaging Services Technical Committee and has been submitted to OASIS for public review. The majority of the AS4 profiling points constraining the ebMS 3.0 specification are based upon the functional requirements of the AS2
AS2
AS2 is a specification about how to transport data securely and reliably over the Internet. Security is achieved by using digital certificates and encryption.- AS2 Technical Overview :The AS2 protocol is based on HTTP and S/MIME...
specification. By scaling back ebMS 3.0 by using AS2 as a blueprint, AS4 provides an entry-level on-ramp for Web services B2B by simplifying the complexities of Web services.
Key Technical Highlights
- Support for SOAP 1.1 and 1.2 enveloping structure
- Payload agnosticism
- Support for single or multiple payloads contained either within the SOAP body or as SOAP attachment(s)
- Support for payload compression
- Support for message-level security including various combinations of XML Digital Signature and/or XML Encryption
- Support for X.509X.509In cryptography, X.509 is an ITU-T standard for a public key infrastructure and Privilege Management Infrastructure . X.509 specifies, amongst other things, standard formats for public key certificates, certificate revocation lists, attribute certificates, and a certification path validation...
security tokens and username/password tokens - Support for business receipt of non-repudiation similar to the Message Disposition Notification (MDN) specified by http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3798|RFC3798 used by AS2 and specified as an XML schema by the ebXML BPSS group
- Support for the ebMS 3.0 One-Way/Push message exchange pattern with support for either synchronous or asynchronous responses
- Support for the ebMS 3.0 One-Way/Pull message exchange pattern which is beneficial for exchanging documents with non-addressable endpoints
External links
- Drummond Group AS4 FAQ
- AS4-Web Services Messaging White Paper - This Drummond Group white paper explains the business benefits of AS4 for both users and implementers along with a technical overview of the specification and the technology framework that supports it.