Networks & Mailboxes
ECGrid is the global infrastructure that enables organizations to transact business seamlessly across all Electronic Commerce Service Providers.
Directly attached to the infrastructure are Networks. Networks can be Value Added Networks (VAN) such as Sterling Commerce, Inovis, GXS, etc, or they can be service providers such as SPS Commerce, CovalentWorks, Trubiquity, etc. They can even be other infrastructures such as the US Federal Government's GEX or Department of Defense's DAASC Hub.
Networks on ECGrid can be any electronic commerce system that supports one or more end users. This is important: End Users do not connect to ECGrid as a Network.
Within ECGrid each Network is identified by an Integer value called the NetworkID. You can use NetworkList to find the Network by name and NetworkInfo to find the name by NetworkID.
A traditional Network, such as a VAN, provides its own routing and mailboxing services to its end users. Many Electronic Commerce Service Providers (ECSPs) also provide their own internal mailbox services. Prior to ECGridOS, the ECGrid Infrastructure only provided Network connections without Mailboxes.
ECGridOS has a complete set of APIs that allows the ECGrid attached Network to create and maintain individual mailboxes within their Network connection.
Each Mailbox on ECGrid is assigned a unique MailboxID. The default Mailbox for each Network is 0 (zero) called the Root. Traffic can be sent to the individual mailboxes or to the Root mailbox, data flow can be configured individually for each mailbox on a network.
It is also possible that one Network's traffic may be redirected to another network. ECGridOS allows all of this rerouting to be mapped internally. In the event of a redirection, the ECGridIDInfo class shows the intended network in the NetworkID property, and the redirection in the OwnerInfo class.