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Setting up a new AS2 connection to a partner can be confusing. However, after setting up the first one, the process just gets easier. This is because the first time you set up AS2 you create a AS2 Organization for your company. Once it's setup, in most cases, it's used for all of your partners.

A quick AS2 'parts' overview for IBM Sterling Integrator is:

AS2 Certificate

AS2 Organization (your information)

AS2 Partner (partners information)

AS2 Relationship (pairing up of AS2 Organization and AS2 Partner)

This tutorial, parts 1-3, will cover setting up a "basic" AS2 connection between you and a partner. All parameters I use will be the defaults (unless otherwise noted) that are predefined in SI. I will show you how to create AS2 certificates when needed, and I will show you how to check in your partners AS2 certificate, when needed.

Here is a link to our documentation for AS2:

http://public.dhe.ibm.com/software/commerce/doc/sb2bi/v5r2/Stds804_Using_AS2.pdf

So Let's get started.

The AS2 Certificate

The first thing to have when creating an AS2 Organization is an AS2 certificate to use for the signing and encrypting of your data. The public portion of this certificate will be sent to your partner, later, for their use.

To do this go to:

Trading Partner>Digital Certificates>System

Enter [Go!]

Enter a Name and Organization, then hit [Next].

Enter a Serial Number (it can be any random number or something specific), Duration in 'days', change the Key Length to 1024 or 2048. Then hit [Next], [Finish] and [Return].

Creating the AS2 certificate is done.

You can verify it by going to Trading Partner>Digital Certificates>System>List ALL

You should see something like:

While we are here lets check it out for future use.

Click check out.

Leave BASE64 checked and hit [Go!]

This will open a notepad entry with the public certificate information in it.

All you need to do is save the notepad file to your system somewhere where you can access it later.

Hit File>Save As and save it to a location for later use. Notice on mine I clearly marked it '... 4 partner.cer'

After you save it you can close the notepad window and the SI certificate window which are left open.

So to this point you have created an AS2 certificate for use with your AS2 Organization and you have checked out the public portion of it to send to your partner at a later date.

Let's create the AS2 Organization that will define your companies side of the AS2 relationship.

The AS2 Organization

Go to Trading Partner>AS2>AS2 partner or organization [Go!]

Select Organization and click [Next]

Create New Identity is already selected, click [Next]

The next screen is a very busy screen with lots to do on it.

Identity Name: is an internal identity.

AS2 Identifier: is the identifier that you will give your partner that they will know you as. It can be your telephone number, DUNS number or your Company Name, or portion of your Company name. When your partner sends data to you this is the identifier that will be in the 'AS2 To:' portion of the AS2 Header. Likewise when you send your partner data it will be in the 'AS2 From:' portion of the AS2 Header.

Profile Name: is the name of the profile as seen from the SI ui.

Exchange Certificate: this certificate will be the same certificate you created earlier in this blog. Simply click on Configure Certificates. Then in the pop up window, highlight the certificate you want to use, again in our case it's the same one we created earlier (BLOG_AS2_certificate), then hit the arrow button that points to the right, then click [Save].

Signing Certificate: repeat the steps above using the same certificate. Followed by [Next], [Finish] and [Return].

Creating the AS2 Organization is done.

In parts 2 and 3 of this blog we will put all the other pieces together so the whole AS2 picture is seen. Continue onto

AS2 Part 2