The VAN Era is So Last Century
Posted by Sean on October 14, 2010
The post-Human era is a time in the future where technology has changed humanity so much that people may not really be “human” any more. This technology can take the form of extremely long life with perfect health or bio-engineering that allows people to take whatever shape they want or machines that people’s consciousness can be loaded into, thereby freeing them from physical bodies.
In the Integration world, we are in the post-VAN era. Current integration technology has evolved so much that anything from the VAN era cannot really be considered integration technology any more. Integration now means not only crossing different systems and networks but also crossing different data formats, business process, security policies, business rules and other advanced capabilities. It’s not about delivering documents between two mailboxes, but coordinating and integrating vast business processes across an ecosystem of companies.
That being said, the EDI format, ANSI X12 being the most common standard, is still widely used across many industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, insurance, and others. And many companies need to exchange information with partners, customers or suppliers in this format, even though they have moved to new systems or processes beyond EDI, such as an SAP implementation or a Web Services environment that supports a service oriented architecture (SOA).
It is possible to support legacy EDI and the latest post-VAN integration processes. Hubspan is one company that does this for thousands of companies worldwide, leveraging our cloud-based integration platform delivered as a service. A cloud integration platform enables all companies to work from current infrastructure and applications in whatever format they desire, while enabling compliance to both internal business rules and external mandates.
While the Post-Human Era may still be the lore of science fiction for now, the Post-VAN Era is not, and your company does not have to continue living in the 20th century of integration.
Tags: ANSI X12, B2B Integration, EDI Standards, EDI VAN
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