Participate in software certification

1. What standards/tests are offered by Drummond Group?
2. How to get a software product tested and certified
3. Need assistance in resolving a problem with a certified product
4. What is InSitu® automation? How will that help me in the test?
5. What are the rules for using the Drummond Certified Seal?
6. Test calendar
7. AS2 test overview
8. FAQ's on testing

1. What standards/tests are offered by Drummond Group?

• Drummond Certified - AS1, AS2, AS2 ITQ Self Paced, AS2 Optional Profiles, AS3, ebMS, CSOS
• GDSN
• Liberty Interoperable - SAML 2.0

For more information, http://www.drummondgroup.com/html-v2/interop-prod.html

AS2 Interoperability Test - AS2 (Applicability Statement 2) is the draft specification standard by which vendor applications communicate EDI or other business-to-business data (such as XML) over the Internet using HTTP, a standard used by the World Wide Web. The AS2 standard continues to be one of the most widely adopted messaging standards in the world. With retailers, consumer products goods, hard-lines, insurance, financial services, petroleum and government industries (to name a few) adopting AS2, the critical financial information that flows over AS2 messaging represents billions of dollars each year. To ensure that important transactional information is received securely, full matrix interoperability certification is mission critical for these industries. There are typically some 25-30 participating products from around the globe participating in each round of testing.

AS2 Optional Test Profiles - Optional Test Profiles are value added functionality built upon an existing technical standard. Various industries have additional requirements which they want added to the AS2 standard and therefore to the AS2 Interoperability Test. The various AS Optional Test Profiles are in various stages of being added to the AS2 standard or listed as "Informational Status" to the standard within IETF. Participation in these test profiles is optional. By making the Industry Test Profiles optional, it maintains the integrity of the existing standard while providing interested software companies who sell into the respective vertical with the opportunity to certify their capabilities. Those software companies who do not sell into the vertical can opt out. The end result is a group of software products certified for compliance and interoperability of the AS2 standard as well as a sub-set of software products also certified for the Optional AS2 Test Profile(s)

Vendors who pass these test profiles are denoted on the test results page. Test results can be found at: http://www.drummondgroup.com/html-v2/as2-companies.html

• Certificate Exchange Messaging (CEM) - CEM is now an Internet-Draft within the IETF. There is growing interest and demand from supply chains (namely retail and consumer products goods) for CEM because of the significant time savings it provides by automating the manual effort of managing certificates that are about to expire. Certificates can be specified for use in digital signatures, data encryption or SSL/TLS over HTTP (HTTPS). For more info: http://www.drummondgroup.com/html-v2/standards-as2-2.html
• Filename Preservation (FN) - The banking industry (specifically FSTC) relies on filenames being communicated between trading partners. AS2 vendors are currently certifying that implementation of filename communication conforms to the standard and is interoperable. There are two test profiles for filenames: FN and FN-MDN. FN specifically refers to the filename preservation profile WITHOUT MDN responses
• Filename Preservation MDN (FN-MDN previously referred to as FSTC MDN) refers to the Filename preservation WITH an associated MDN error or warning response notification. Some banks were interested in software that provided an MDN response, therefore a distinction was made for the buyers. For more info: http://www.drummondgroup.com/html-v2/standards-as2-1.html
• Multiple Attachments (MA) - Multiple Attachment (MA) capability is the ability to transfer multiple documents within a single AS2 message. This feature may be useful for any industry, but it is extensively used by the Petroleum Industry Data Exchange (PIDX). For more info: http://www.drummondgroup.com/html-v2/standards-as2-3.html
• AS2 Reliability - The AS2 Reliability Profile addresses duplicate message elimination and standardizes mechanisms for retrying and resending AS2 Messages and MDNs which are crucial to reliable operation of production AS2 installations. This feature may be utilized by any industry but the standards work has been undertaken by eCommerce Technology Group (eTG) under GS1. Starting in 2007, DGI began a phased approach to testing the Reliability standard and the participation has been high by users and vendors alike. For more info: http://www.drummondgroup.com/html-v2/standards-as2-4.html

  There are several phases of implementing this profile over the next couple of years:
  Phase One- AS2 Reliability testing in the AS2-3Q07 test round will ONLY focus on reusing "same AS2 message" as originally packaged and attempted be retried or resent This implies the MessageID as originally provided will also be reused and allows the receiving side to detect duplicate messages based on the MessageID and eliminate them.

  NOTE: Phase two and Phase three have not gone through final reviews with users or vendors and therefore these are just DRAFT Test Proposals at this writing.
  Phase Two - DRAFT PROPOSAL: For consideration in AS2-Q08 are Very Large Messages, meaning messages with a very large payload. Large and larger payloads are being exchanged in AS2 communities, and DGI will introduce payloads in the 100's of MB to one or several GB. Reliability Phase One functionality will be required for entry into Reliability Phase Two
  Phase Three - DRAFT PROPOSAL: For consideration is introducing AS2 Reliability configuration requirements from the AS2 Reliability Draft, such as number of retries and interval of retries.

AS2 In the Queue Test Self Paced (AS ITQ SP) - There are two AS2 ITQ SP programs depending on whether the product is NEW to testing or whether it's passed AS2 Interoperability Testing in the past :

• AS2 In the Queue Self Paced NEW (AS2 ITQ SP NEW) -This test is the required first step for all products "new" to AS2 testing. AS2 ITQ SP NEW is a debug and conformance round in which the participating company can test against "Interoperable AS2 products" hosted by DGI in order to prepare their AS2 product for the AS2 Interoperability Test. AS2 ITQ Self-Paced NEW includes a test plan with required milestones. The participant is expected to resolve conformance issues on his/her own. The only technical support provided by DGI is connectivity to the hosted products. Any other technical support requests would require purchase of a minimum of five hours of DGI Tech Support.
• AS2 In the Queue Self Paced CONTINUE (AS2 ITQ Self Paced Continue)- AS2 In-the-Queue Self-Paced is for software products which have been Drummond Certified for AS2 interoperability in a previous round but has skipped the most recent round of testing. AS2 ITQ Self-Paced includes a test plan with required milestones, and access to testing against "Interoperable AS2 products " which successfully passed the most recent round of testing. The participant is expected to resolve conformance issues on his/her own. The only technical support provided by DGI is connectivity to the hosted products. Any other technical support requests would require purchase of a minimum of five hours of DGI Tech Support.

AS1 Interoperability Test - AS1 (Applicability Statement 1) is the RFC standard (RFC3335) by which vendor applications communicate EDI or other business-to-business data (such as XML) over the Internet using SMTP, the standard used for email. This standard continues to be utilized by companies who primarily utilize email as their primary (or secondary) mode of communication.

AS3 Interoperability Test - AS3 (Applicability Statement 3) is the draft specification standard by which vendor applications communicate EDI (or other data such as XML) over the Internet using File Transfer Protocol (FTP). AS3 is uniquely marketed by several vendors as being able to exchange Very Large Files easily. For more info: http://www.drummondgroup.com/html-v2/as3.html Two important changes for AS3 testing in 2008:

• Based on feedback from many of you, the Very Large File (VLM) exchange test will move from "Experimental" to "Optional" for the AS3 Interop test in 2008. This means that participating companies in the VLM test will be listed on the DGI website product listings and on the AS3 Final Report. The files exchanged will be 500mg and 1G; you may choose to participate in one, both, or none of these file size exchanges.
• Based on requests from the majority of the test participants, starting in 2009, InSitu automation for AS3 will be MANDATORY. Those of you who have already implemented AS3 InSitu may use InSitu automation in the 2008 AS3 Interop as it will be optional for 2008 but mandatory for 2009. There will be an opportunity to InSitu enable your AS3 product June 2-July 1, 2008.

ebMS 2.0 Interoperability Test - ebXML Messaging (also called TRP - Transport Routing & Packaging ) specifically focuses on the means to transmit a document (payload) from one party to another, possibly via intermediaries. Companies from around the globe find great value in ebMS interoperability certification. For more info: http://www.drummondgroup.com/html-v2/ebxml.html There are two optional ebMS test profiles included in this test:

• The Automotive Retail Profile is a profile test designed specifically for GZIP-based compression. The profile is based on recommendations from the Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail (STAR) consortium.
• The XML Encryption Profile enables XML encryption and SSL client authentication. Initially, it was proposed by and is used by the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention in the CDC's Public Health Information Network. The XML Encryption Profile is appropriate for cross-industry use where message level encryption and client authentication are desired.

Two Important Changes for 2008:

• Starting in 2008, stricter validation of Section 4.2.3 will be a Mandatory requirement. Historically, DGI has included a number of test cases to validate the conformance of Product-Under-Test generated error messages. DGI accomplishes this by sending a series of messages to each participant that should cause an error condition to occur at the receiving endpoint. DGI has checked the error messages in the past for conformance to Section 4.2 of the ebMS V2.0 specification for the appropriate handling of errors. Starting in 2008, there will stricter conformance to the ErrorList construct detailed in Section 4.2.3, with increased emphasis on the errorCode values detailed in Section 4.2.3.4.
• We'll reach a consensus at the end of ebMS-4Q07 to determine whether to make mandatory, the requirement that both DSA and RSA be supported in 2008. DSA signed messages are optional in 2007, RSA is required.

2. How to get a software product tested and certified

Depending on the standard, there are different steps and processes involved for preparing for an interoperability test. Some tests for example, require undergoing a "In-the-Queue" process which is a conformance and debugging round against reference products hosted by DGI. Some tests like AS2, require InSitu automation.

3. Need assistance in resolving a problem with a certified product

If you have further questions, contact: info@drummondgroup.com

4. What is InSitu® automation? How will that help me in the test?

See InSitu FAQ's>>

5. What are the rules for using the Drummond Certified Seal?

6. Test calendar

7. AS2 test overview

For detailed information on AS2 Interoperability testing, see - http://www.drummondgroup.com/html-v2/as2-test-overview.html

8. FAQ's on testing