Key Concepts

This topic gives you a brief description of the terms that you may encounter when working with the product. To understand these basic concepts of TIBCO BusinessConnect Container Edition, you can go through the following key concepts:

Trading Partners:
Trading Partners are the participants involved in a business relationship to carry out business transactions between each other. TIBCO BusinessConnect Container Edition defines two types of trading partners: Hosts and Partners.
  • Host: A participant who sponsors a trading community, where standardized business transactions occur between host and its trading partners. A host can be a retailer, a manufacturer, or any sponsor who creates a trading community.
  • Partner: A participant who is outside the host's company and establishes business agreement with the host. For example, a partner can be a vendor, customer, or healthcare provider.
Trading Community:
Trading community is a conceptual domain within which business transactions occur between the host and its trading partners. TIBCO BusinessConnect Container Edition allows an enterprise to create a trading community, which consists of a host (the creator or sponsor of a trading community) and its respective partners.
Business Agreement:
Host and its trading partners are bound by a business agreement that includes detailed information, which the participants must agree upon before they exchange electronic documents with each other. The business agreement between host and partner must have information regarding the business protocols (inbound or outbound), the corresponding transport protocols, and operations. In TIBCO BusinessConnect Container Edition, the protocol-centric business agreement establishes a common method for exchanging business documents between the two participants.
Business Protocols:
Business Protocols are the standard methods used to exchange business documents between the participants. The host and the partner have to agree upon a common protocol before exchanging business documents or any operation in the transaction. This simplifies business transactions between the trading partners. For example, RosettaNet, and EZComm are the business protocols with their own specifications on how trading partners should send and receive business documents and its format.
Transport:
TIBCO BusinessConnect Container Edition supports HTTP, HTTPS, AS2_HTTP, AS2_HTTPS, EMAIL, AS1_EMAIL, FILE, FTP, FTPS, and SSHFTP transports to facilitate secured communication and transmission of the electronic documents between the participants. The type of the transport protocol depends upon the business protocols that are specified in the business agreement between the host and the trading partner.
Operations:
An operation is defined as the type of electronic document exchanged between the trading partners. The type of operation depends upon the business agreement established between the participants. For example, a typical B2B implementation manages operations such as purchase order, invoice, shipment status, and other types of operations with their respective number assignment.

Private Process:
Private process refers to the internal processes within your company that exchange data through the TIBCO BusinessConnect Container Edition server. Typically, a private process includes sending or receiving B2B documents deeper into or from the host's internal applications, such as an ERP system, a claims adjudication system, and other systems.