Upgrade to Arc

Arc is the latest version of several earlier application releases, including the following:

• IP*Works! EDI AS2 Connector V7 (/n software)
• AS2 Connector V2 (/n software)
• AS2 Connector V3, FTP Connector V1, OFTP Connector V2, and SFTP Connector V1 (Arc)

Arc offers a quick 3-step way to import your old trading partners from previous versions of the app. This article shows how to upgrade the AS2 Connector V3.

A similar process can be followed for other connectors. The following sections provide important information about planning your replacement or side-by-side installation.

• Install Arc
• Import Profiles
• Replacement vs. Side by Side

Install Arc

Windows Users

The Windows installation of Arc can be run alongside previous releases without conflict. Arc targets a different installation path and listens on a different connector. Simply run the setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the application on the machine.

Java Users

Like the previous versions of the AS2 Connector (and other releases in the Connector family), the application is provided as a distributable arc.war file. If you distribute this .war to your Java server using the server's built-in deployment wizard, this will replace your existing installation of the AS2 Connector in its entirety, including trading partner profiles.

If you wish to perform an in-place upgrade of the AS2 Connector and still preserve your profile settings between installations, you will need to create a copy of your previous installation's data folder prior to deploying the new package. This data folder is located in the /WEB-INF/data/ folder under the existing Web application folder. Once you have copied this folder into a new location, you can deploy Arc in place of the existing installation. When launching the application for the first time, no connectors will be configured, and you can use the Import Profiles button to specify the location where you copied your data folder to restore your profiles.

Alternatively, you can rename the arc.war provided with Arc to install this version of the application as a parallel application. For example, naming the application to "arc.war" will deploy the application to a Web application named arc that will run in parallel to the pre-existing arc application.

Import Profiles

If you are upgrading from an earlier version of the AS2 Connector, SFTP Connector, or other previous versions, there are several methods by which you can detect and import your existing partner profile configurations.

Windows Users

If you are installing the Windows edition of Arc on a machine where a previous version of the application was installed, the installation program will attempt to detect the installation of the previous version and offer you the opportunity to import your profile settings from it. If a partner profile is detected that is of the same name as one already configured in Arc, this process will create a duplicate entry with a number appended to the identifying field in order to ensure that it is unique. You can safely delete duplicate profiles after they are imported.

Java Users

If you are installing Arc in a Java environment, or if you load Arc where no trading partners are yet configured, you will be presented with a button in the Partners section to import the profiles from an older installation of the connector application. Select the data folder of your old installation to import profiles from it.

Replacement vs. Side by Side

After you have imported your profiles from the previous installation, you can now send new transmissions to your trading partners successfully.

If you receive incoming transmissions from your partners, you will need to decide between two options. You can either use a new server port for Arc, which maintains your earlier release on the original port, or you can configure Arc as an in-place upgrade and configure it to use the same port.

Note: The receiving page for the AS2 Connector has changed from /as2connector/pub/ReceiveFile.rsb to /pub/Receive.rsb. Arc will still process requests directed to /as2connector/pub/ReceiveFile.rsb or /Receiver.aspx, so it will only be necessary to change the port on your server if you do not want to introduce any changes to your URLs.

Using a New Port

Advantages

1. Transition trading partners at their own pace.
2. No downtime.

Disadvantages

1. Trading partners will need to change your URL in the profile configuration on their end.
2. An additional port will need to be opened on the firewall.
3. Both versions of the application are maintained.

By default, Arc is designed not to conflict with the installation of previous versions of the AS2 Connector, so you can maintain both versions of the application and transfer partners to the new version at your own pace. The server provided with Arc listens on a different port (8001) and uses different URIs for receiving AS2 transmissions than in earlier releases. After you import your profiles into Arc, you will need to update your trading partners so that they are sending to your new Receiving URL.

Using the Existing Port

Advantages

1. Trading partners do not need to change profiles.
2. Maintain one system.

Disadvantages

1. Downtime while old server is stopped to free up port for new server.
2. Existing profiles must first be imported.

You can also configure Arc to receive at the same port that earlier versions used. If you do this, however, please note that you will need to stop the server hosting the previous version so the same port can be assigned to Arc. You will also need to assign the Arc server to the same port that you were using for the previous version. You can configure the port settings in the Server Options menu when you right-click on the icon in the system tray.

Note: If the port that you configure is an SSL-enabled port, you will also need to configure the same SSL certificate that was used for the previous version of the AS2 Connector on this port. Arc will be able to configure certificates in the same location that was used in AS2 Connector V3 (the Local Machine account's Personal certificate store).