SWIFTNet Input Channel

The SWIFTNet 6.1 release introduced the concept of an input channel. Currently, the Sterling B2B Integrator only supports the use of input channel for InterAct messages in store-and-forward (SnF) mode. An input channel can be used by the messaging interface to establish an input session with SWIFT. The input session starts when the messaging interface opens the input channel and ends when the messaging interface closes the input channel. The input channel also supports sender-to-receiver first-in-first-out (FIFO), which means that each message is delivered only one time and minimizes the number of possible duplicates.

During such an input session, each message that is sent using this input channel is assigned a sequence number. This numbering is used by SWIFT to detect messages that are out of sequence, gaps in a sequence, and duplicate messages.

So messages are delivered in the same sequence that they are sent, SWIFT only delivers messages when all messages with a lower sequence number have been acknowledged by SWIFT. When the acknowledgement on a message is lost, the messaging interface must resend the message with the original sequence number. This allows duplicate messages to be more easily identified and avoided by SWIFT.

SWIFT automatically provides a default input channel for each user (BIC8) who is subscribed to at least one service working in store-and-forward mode. You can optionally create additional input channels when you have two or more messaging interfaces that operate independently at the same time, because the input channel can only be used by one messaging interface at a time.