1.12 On the Digital Signature and Digital Certificates.

Each application-service component of the I-Commerce may have its own gateway. Alternatively, integrated gateways may exist. An example of a Service Gateway is an EDI Gateway. One basic function of a gateway is protocol / format translation. Recommending a strategy of solving an I-Commerce oriented problem may often involve the following steps (Banerjee 2004):

	Analyze the company / organization's profile
	Analyze the customer / audience satisfaction data
	Suggest an I-commerce Architecture that could provide benefits of the technology with the least possible
	financial requirements in phases
	Build / evolve a structural design
	Carry out simulation studies and if required modify the design
	Implement a prototype, if it seems a high-risk venture. Else, implement the design

1.12 On the Digital Signature and Digital Certificates.

Example: Oracle EDI Gateway

Oracle Applications provides users with the ability to conduct business electronically between trading partners based on the E-Commerce standards and methodology. One form of E-Commerce is EDI. The EDI Gateway performs the following functions (Thompson, et al. 1998):

	Define trading partner groups and trading partner locations.
	Enable transactions for trading partners.
	Provide location code conversion between trading partner location codes and codes used in Oracle Applications.
	Provide general code conversion between trading partner codes or standard codes.
	Define interface data files so that application data can interface with EDI translators.
	Extract application data, format, and write to data files (outbound transactions).
	Import data or converted codes into application open interface tables so that application program interfaces
	(API) can validate and update Oracle application tables (inbound transactions).