Batch and File Exchange

Batch and file exchange is a realization substrate for moving finite collections, documents, snapshots, deltas, manifests, or artifacts across system boundaries through durable named objects.

A file is a carrier and storage representation, not a semantic event, command, observation, or process. Creating, publishing, discovering, transferring, receiving, validating, and admitting a file are distinct occurrences. At a receiving boundary, file arrival or discovery is an exogenous event whose manifest and contents are interpreted by an observer.

Exchange Contract

A robust exchange may require:

Stable batch, file, contract, source, subject, and attempt identities.
Manifest, format, schema, semantic revision, checksums, signatures, and encryption context.
Atomic publication or a completion marker so partial files are not admitted as complete.
Snapshot, delta, sequence, partition, and consistent-cut meanings.
Duplicate, replacement, late, missing, corrupt, and out-of-order handling.
Retention, archival, quarantine, purge, and replay rules.
Acknowledgment and reconciliation of which records were accepted, rejected, or committed.

File rename, object-store completion, checksum verification, or transfer acknowledgment proves only a local substrate claim. It does not prove that every record was semantically admitted or that downstream transitions committed.

Batch exchange can realize interaction channels, document messages, claim checks, projection transfer, backfill, migration, model-artifact movement, or air-gapped integration. Storage systems, object stores, managed file transfer, shared volumes, email attachments, and removable media provide different durability, identity, ordering, security, and failure boundaries.

External References

Gregor Hohpe and Bobby Woolf, File Transfer, Enterprise Integration Patterns, 2003.