Question

1. Why has IBM and Sterling Commerce focussed on AS2 and AS4 service offerings?

Answer 1

IBM uses AS2(Applicability Statement 2) for the security functions.the data flow over the internet to be secured with end to end encryption and senders authentication and various digital security purposes. the file which get transferred between senders and receivers firstly get validated ur authenticated by this AS2 protocol mechanism the only it get processed further.secure encryption and decryption of files are taken so that no hacker or leakage of data should takes place.

More advantages of this AS2 mechanism is multiple messages can be transferred between sender and receiver by using different interfaces.work flow of messages and automatic status can be easily done by using this AS2 mechanism. basically it is a property of protecting data flow securely over the internet . sender and receiver , client and server should get authenticated before transmission of data.

Sterling Commerce uses AS4 (Applicability Statement 4) open standard for the secure and payload-agnostic exchange of Business-to-business documents using Web services.exchange of structured and unstructured protocols to ensure the security purposes. other valuable property is its data integrity in which message cant be altered between two data receipent.third parties cant access the data or message which get transferd between two sender or receiver.

AS4 is a next-generation protocol from AS2. There are some differences:AS4 allows for service-oriented architecture exchanges, not only document interchange. This means you can extend your SOA to reach out to your ecosystem.it also acts as a super set of AS2.

both are used for data integrity and data protection . one used in B2B purposes where one used to overload data on internet.