Covast Improves Scalability, Ease of Use and Trading Partner Support with Launch of EDI Accelerator for Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006


ATLANTA, Nov. 16 / -- Covast, a leading provider of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) integration solutions for collaborative business environments, today launched the Covast EDI Accelerator for Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006. As the newest addition to the company's suite of B2B integration solutions, the Covast EDI Accelerator 2006 has an easy to use interface and advanced end-to-end EDI capabilities to extend the B2B integration functionalities of the latest version of Microsoft's single integration platform, Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006. Using the Covast EDI Accelerator in conjunction with Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006, an enterprise can easily and quickly integrate its EDI infrastructure with internal applications and Internet-based trading partners.

Since the first release of the Covast EDI Accelerator for BizTalk Server 2000, this solution has helped bridge the gap between legacy EDI investments and Microsoft BizTalk Server. The launch of Covast EDI Accelerator 2006 marks the release of the first version of the solution that is completely and fully integrated in the Microsoft BizTalk Server architecture.

"Since its inception, the Covast EDI Accelerator has helped businesses quickly and easily integrate their legacy EDI systems onto the Microsoft BizTalk Server single integration platform," said Daan Scheer, CEO of Covast. "The latest version of the Covast EDI Accelerator solution has been developed to meet the integration demands of today's growing enterprise. This includes the need for increased scalability, improved ease of use and wider support of all of the global standards and protocols."

Specifically, Covast EDI Accelerator 2006 features the following significant improvements over past releases:

o Full Scalability and Fail-Over Architecture: The Covast EDI Accelerator 2006 product helps enterprises using EDI for B2B communication realize the full potential of improved scalability provided by Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006. As a company adds more servers to its infrastructure, the processing power of its EDI systems grows proportionately and also provides for a full and natural fail-over architecture.
o Connectivity built on the BizTalk Server Transport Adapter Framework: The complete list of communication protocols supported by the Covast EDI Accelerator 2006 is now available as a set of BizTalk Transport Adapters. This means that any message, regardless of if the message is EDI or not, can be sent and received via any of the available protocols, like AS2, a value added network (VAN) or FTP. It also means that EDI messages can be sent and received via Transport Adapters that are not developed by Covast.
o Comprehensive Support of EDI Formats, Standards and Protocols: The Covast EDI Accelerator 2006 supports a wider range of formats and protocols. Additionally, the product supports the complete end-to-end handling of multi-byte encoded EDI messages often found in Chinese, Korean and Japanese character sets.
o Integrated Trading Partner Management: Trading partner configuration data can now be managed from one centralized location within the appropriate Microsoft BizTalk Server toolset, extending the server's native capabilities with EDI specific handling. Unlike in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 this is no longer a developer's task, but an administrator's task. Additionally, these new trading partner management capabilities also enable bulk import and export of configuration data.
o Full Leverage of BPM and BAM Capabilities: Companies implementing the Covast EDI Accelerator 2006 solution are able to fully integrate their EDI message flows in the configured business process management (BPM) and business activity monitoring (BAM) environment, thereby enabling a complete management and monitoring experience for the entire integration infrastructure.
o New User Interface: The EDI Accelerator's developer user interface has been integrated in the Visual Studio workbench, which is the single toolset environment for developers of Microsoft BizTalk Server solutions. All administrative tasks specific to the EDI Accelerator can be accomplished from within the Microsoft BizTalk Administration Console.
o Simplified Migration of EDI Systems to Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006: Customers implementing the Covast EDI Accelerator 2006 as an upgrade to BizTalk Server 2002, 2004 or 2006 Base EDI Adapter or Covast EDI Accelerator 2002 or 2004, are able to seamlessly migrate their current EDI environment to the new version.

The Covast EDI Accelerator 2006 is currently being tested by Covast customers. The official release of the solution is scheduled for March 2006. To learn more about the Covast EDI Accelerator for Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006, please visit http://www.covast.com/.

About Covast

Covast provides Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) integration solutions that bridge the gap between legacy applications and today's new Internet standards. The company offers a suite of products designed to facilitate fast, cost-effective integration of EDI applications and systems into single platform environments, such as those supported by Microsoft BizTalk Server and IBM WebSphere. With its European headquarters in the Netherlands and its U.S. headquarters in Atlanta, Covast has strategic relationships with partners and customers including Microsoft, IBM, Accenture, EDS, HP, Citrix and Siemens. For more information, visit http://www.covast.com/.

Contact:
Hannah C. Bower
Covast Corporation
T: 404.247.1123
E: pr@covast.com

Source: Covast Corporation

Web site: http://www.covast.com/

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