A UK Logistics Group Brought AS2 in House on Files.com to Onboard Retail Partners Directly

A UK road transport and logistics group operates across the UK and Europe. Its consumer-facing arm handles warehousing and final-mile delivery for retail customers: retail orders flow into the group's systems, and confirmation documents and proof-of-delivery returns flow back out as files exchanged with each retailer's own systems.

That exchange is EDI, and in retail, EDI usually means AS2: the signed, encrypted, receipted protocol large retailers require of their trading partners. The group ran its partner SFTP exchange on Files.com. Its AS2 connections lived somewhere else, with a third-party hosted EDI supplier hired to carry the protocol. That arrangement made sense for the IT team, because running AS2 in house has traditionally meant operating an AS2 server and managing certificates with every counterparty. The group wanted those connections on infrastructure its own team could operate, test, and extend.

To keep growing, the group needed those AS2 connections on the Files.com site it already operated: under its own control, independently testable, and ready for its team to extend to new partners.

Two Sides To Every AS2 Connection

AS2 is a two-party protocol: certificates, signatures, encryption and delivery receipts all have to line up with each counterparty, and when a transfer does not complete, each side can see only its own end. Whoever operates the endpoint is the one who can test it. The group wanted to be that operator, so that any question about a connection could be answered with a test transfer from its own side rather than a support request to a third party.

The group wanted AS2 to support growth, not constrain it. The point was commercial: offer AS2 as an option to new retail customers and expand the base, with its own team standing up each new trading relationship.

An AS2 Endpoint The Group Could Operate And Prove

The replacement had to be an AS2 endpoint the group controlled outright. Certificates it could generate, exchange and rotate itself. A signed receipt on every message, so delivery could never be disputed. A setup the group could test independently, so a connection question could be located on the correct side quickly. And it had to sit beside the SFTP exchange the group's EDI already ran on, rather than adding a second platform for the team to operate.

Files.com already carried that SFTP exchange, so the group stood AS2 up on the same site.

A Parallel Cutover, One Certificate At A Time

The group's Lead IT Engineer generated and self-signed the certificates and exchanged them with each trading partner directly. The new endpoint came up in parallel with the hosted supplier, and partner traffic moved across as each connection proved out. Files.com signed and encrypted every AS2 transmission and returned the MDN receipt the partner's software expected, so every message either came back confirmed or showed up as a failure to act on. The group put the endpoint behind its own domain and allowlisted dedicated Files.com IP addresses through the corporate firewall, giving the team an endpoint it could operate and test itself.

The team also adopted a validation step that became standard practice: before engaging a trading partner about a connection that is not completing, run a test AS2 transfer against Files.com to prove the group's own side works, then take that proof to the partner.

Live Traffic, Provable Endpoints, And Direct Partner Onboarding

With AS2 running on Files.com, the group replaced a hosted AS2 service with a capability it operates itself.

• AS2 partner traffic went live and bidirectional, moved across from the supplier to support the order, confirmation and POD flows running with retail customers.
• Connection questions now open with evidence. Ahead of a later certificate rotation, the group ran its validation step first: a working test transfer against Files.com confirmed its own certificate before the exchange with the partner began, and the connection came up on the rotated certificates.
• Onboarding a new trading partner is now work the group does itself, by standing up an AS2 connection or an SFTP location on the same Files.com site. The group widened its protocol coverage from SFTP-only to SFTP plus AS2, and offers AS2 as an option when winning new retail customers.

AS2 As A Protocol, Not A Subscription

AS2 is usually treated as something a company buys from a specialist: an appliance in a rack or a hosted EDI service. The group treated it as one more protocol on the platform it already ran and took direct control of the connections its retail business trades on.