Migrating from Sterling B2B Integrator with the Maps Import Wizard

Since 2003, Tangentia has been a leading provider of digital transformation solutions to companies of all sizes, implementing wide-scale automation, B2B, and digital integration solutions. Among their solutions, Tangentia provides end-to-end EDI integration services, spanning B2B/EDI document exchange as well as backend CRM, ERP, and database integration.

With 15+ years of digital transformation experience under their belt, Tangentia has helped companies automate supply chains and streamline business activity to boost reliability, accuracy, and security.

The Challenge: Breaking Away from Aging Technology

For years, they've used IBM's Sterling B2B Integrator to implement end-to-end integrations for clients, processing up to 20,000 EDI transactions per month via AS2 alone. However, they discovered that Sterling B2B Integrator's limited functionality severely restricted the breadth of the solutions they could offer to clients. Just some of the major challenges they faced with Sterling B2B Integrator include:

• Limited error logging within the IBM product, which forced Tangentia to dedicate an entire team to exclusively monitor transactions — adding heavily to their cost of business.
• The lack of a REST API limited Tangentia's flexibility to handle end-to-end EDI-ERP and EDI-CRM integrations.
• Limited workflow capabilities forced Tangentia to develop custom C# and Python scripts to handle common EDI processes that Sterling simply did not support.
• No backups and limited export features meant Tangentia had to create manual workarounds to ensure basic redundancies.

A complete lack of support to integrate with 3rd-party applications was the last straw, and Tangentia knew they had to search for a more robust, flexible solution that would serve them and their expanding clientele well for years to come.

Tangentia not only needed a solution that could reliably replace Sterling B2B Integrator, but also one that was scalable and flexible enough to deal with their ever-expanding requirements. Most importantly, however, they needed a solution that was able to accelerate the process of migrating away from Sterling.

The Solution: Flexible, Scalable ESB with a Maps Import Wizard

As a global digital transformation solutions provider with a widespread clientele amongst hundreds of companies, Tangentia required a highly sophisticated solution with the following features:

• Robust managed file transfer capabilities with Drummond-Certified AS2, SFTP Server, and other file transfer protocol support
• Automatic EDI translation for ANSI X12 and EDIFACT files
• Reliable ERP, CRM, and RDBMS connectivity from within the user interface
• API functionality to issue REST and SOAP requests
• Detailed logging & error identification processes
• Scalability to handle high-volume transactions
• Intuitive EDI mapping features and time-saving UI
• Reliable and responsive support

“Sterling B2B Integrator had no API functionality, and we had to write numerous custom C# scripts to send out API requests. This affected our ability to integrate with databases," said Rushabh Dharwadkar, B2B Technical Lead, Tangentia. “Another reason for switching away from Sterling was because of extremely limited error logging. So much so that we had a dedicated team of seven people just for error monitoring and monitoring each transaction."

In ArcESB, Tangentia found a solution that could do everything Sterling B2B Integrator could, and much more. In fact, they were able to significantly reduce the number of custom scripts they were using for integrations and implement everything from API to database connectivity directly from ArcESB.

They leveraged the ArcESB Maps Import Wizard to automatically and easily begin their migration process away from Sterling.

“We were able to reduce the number of maps we use throughout our projects by more than 50%. That was extremely beneficial, as it translated to fewer errors, and even easier error identification, which was a considerable sticking point for us on our old platform."

The Results: 11 Migrations in 4 Months, with More to Come

By switching from Sterling B2B Integrator to ArcESB, Tangentia has expanded their available toolset to deliver digital transformation projects and reduced the complexity of the projects themselves with ArcESB's intuitive design and user-friendly organization.

At the time of writing, Tangentia has migrated 11 of their clients from Sterling to ArcESB over a duration of four months — warp speed in comparison to their previous timelines.

“Typically, onboarding a new client using Sterling Integrator would take four to five months. Now with ArcESB, we were able to migrate all 11 existing projects in just about four months, and new clients take less than two months to onboard," Dharwadkar said.

ArcESB has also boosted Tangentia's bottom line by automating the process of error monitoring, allowing their engineers to focus on value-added digital transformation projects, rather than simply spending resources on manual error monitoring.

Perhaps most importantly, ArcESB has enabled Tangentia to offer end-to-end EDI integrations on a unified platform — while cutting EDI costs for their customers and passing on the savings. ArcESB's affordable unlimited EDI license enabled unlimited EDI processing at a fraction of the cost.

The Next Step: Tangentia B2B Gateway Powered by ArcESB

With superior functionality, reduced complexity and a more affordable EDI solution, they are prepared to offer their customers novel offerings, none more intriguing than the Tangentia B2B Gateway — powered by ArcESB.

“Our latest offering is an online portal called the Tangentia B2B Gateway that allows people to interact with their EDI documents using an entirely online portal powered completely by a single instance of ArcESB. We are now processing more than 20,000 files per month and will continue to scale and process more files in the near future."