Automotive Industry:Communication Protocols Used
The automotive industry uses a number of standard communication protocols such as FTP, but in Europe the main communication protocol is use today is OFTP, Odette File Transfer Protocol. OFTP has been used across the European automotive industry since the mid 1980’s and most of the car manufacturers are using this protocol to communicate with their business partner community. With the introduction of the Internet many car manufacturers have been working with the Odette organization to try and bring the OFTP standard up to date and a new release called OFTP v2.0 was introduced to the automotive market in 2010. This new version of OFTP has been designed from the outset to be used across the Internet and it offers secure exchange of documents using encryption and the exchange of digital certificates. OFTP2 also allows large files such as Computer Aided Design (CAD) files to be exchanged with ease. Exchange of CAD files is a common problem within the automotive industry due to the sensitive nature and large size of the files being transferred.
