OFTP2

The driver for the development of the Odette File Transfer Protocol Version 2 (OFTP2) was a need arising out of the XMTD group (eXchange & Management of Technical Data Workgroup) of SASIG (Strategic Automotive product data Standards Industry Group).

The SASIG XMTD group had specified a “global” digital envelope for the electronic exchange of engineering data (ENGDATv3) but were now looking for a way to exchange these large data files with partners anywhere in the world in a secure but also cost-effective way.  

The answer to the requirement for cost-effectiveness seemed obvious: Use the public Internet.

But the question was how to ensure the necessary level of security.  

Several existing secure protocols (AS2, SFTP, HTTPS, …) were examined but it was obvious that they were all lacking either one or several of the mandatory features:

• Usable in a batch environment,
• Restart points,
• Free availability (not depending on a specific organisation),
• Low cost.  

The SASIG XMTD group members then decided that OFTP would be the best answer, provided that the necessary security mechanisms could be added.  

They therefore asked Odette, the original developer and owner of the OFTP specification, to consider making the necessary enhancements to the existing OFTPV1.4.  

Odette readily agreed to this proposal and an Odette project group began work on this in June 2005.  

The first result of this work is the OFTP2 Protocol itself, which was released as an Odette publication in December 2006 and was approved as an RFC by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) in October 2007.  

The second result of the work of the Odette project group is this OFTP2 Implementation Guidelines which is aimed at both Users and Implementers and its complementary document: the OFTP2 Certificate Policy. 

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