This section gives you the high-level view of how the messages are processed by the Babelway system.

In Babelway words, the messages are processed by Channels. A channel defines the full path that a message follows within Babelway, from the external system that generated the input file, to the external system that must receive the output.

Its main components are:

1. The gateway in specifies the way incoming messages are communicated from the source external system to Babelway. Babelway supports a large variety of protocols, including FTP, AS2, HTTP, Email, OFTP, SFTP, X400 or web upload.
2. The message in precisely describes the structure of the incoming message.
3. The transformation describes how the incoming message should be translated to the outgoing message.
4. The message out precisely describes the structure of the outgoing message.
5. The gateway out specifies how the outgoing message should be communicated to the target external system.

Some optional components are:

1. The test cases are a great way to be sure that your channels are correctly configured, and produce the expected results.
2. The notifications allow you to receive emails when messages are processed, or are in error.
3. The routing allows you to define which channel must process a message, when multiple channels use the same gateway in for example.

Another important concept is the notion of deployment: when you are setting up your channels, you can make any changes you want without any risk to the production system. You can work safely without impacting your production flow of messages. When you're satisfied with the new setup and want the changes to take effect for the production messages, you have to deploy your environment. The new setup is migrated to the servers that handle your production messages.