Business-to-consumer network
The basic electronic commerce Web site is a business-to-consumer network. In the first phase of Internet growth, businesses typically focus on simply creating a Web presence. Corporate information and product catalogs are converted to digital formats and made available on the Web site. Shopping can be available by providing e-mail addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and even automated forms. True online shopping, however, is not available. All transactions have an inherent latency because humans need to process the order.
In phase two, businesses eliminate this latency and streamline their sales operation by implementing secure shopping carts for direct online purchases. Synchronization with warehouse databases and integration with banking systems are crucial to completing these sales transactions. Product that is not available cannot be sold, and a customer's account cannot be charged for that item. Likewise, a product cannot be taken from inventory and shipped to a customer until a valid financial transaction occurs.
In the third phase, the corporate Web site evolves into a dynamic presentation site where the consumer begins to take on the aspects of a client and is provided with personalized content.
The following scenerio includes both Load Balancer and Caching Proxy.
IMPORTANT: Caching Proxy is available on all Edge component installations, with the following exceptions:
- Caching Proxy is not available for Edge component installations that run on Itanium 2 or AMD Opteron 64-bit processors.
- Caching Proxy is not available for Edge component installations of Load Balancer for IPv4 and IPv6.