WebSphere Commerce includes a Java-based commerce server to control the flow of information in the WebSphere Commerce system. The following diagram illustrates the WebSphere Commerce Server related components:
The following points give an overview of each component:
Tools
- WebSphere Commerce Accelerator
- A browser-based component that you can use to operate and to maintain online stores after you have created them. The set of menu items and tasks adapt to the role of the user.
- Administration Console
- A browser-based component that allows complete administrative operations at the site level or the store level. There is a specialized version of this console, referred to as the Organization Administration Console for administering people, groups, organizations and associated security elements.
- WebSphere Commerce development environment
- A complete Web development environment based on WebSphere Studio Application Developer, for developing storefronts and customizing the domain model (business processes and business objects) within the WebSphere Commerce Server.
WebSphere Commerce Server
- Subsystems
- Marketing
- The Marketing subsystem provides numerous marketing functions to your site. Using the WebSphere Commerce Accelerator, the Marketing Manager can create customer profiles and marketing campaigns for advertising, promoting products, informing customers or partners, or promoting merchandising initiatives
- Merchandising
- The Merchandising subsystem provides numerous techniques for driving increased sales, such as suggestive selling, discounts, guided selling, auctions, and promotions.
- Catalog
- The Catalog subsystem enables you to provide online catalog that includes detailed product information, images, category navigation, product search and comparison, and pricing.
- Trading
- The trading subsystem enables more advanced business-to-business exchanges, such as negotiating the price and quantity of a product or set of products using a Request for Quote (RFQ) mechanism, and the ability to formally capture the relationship between organizations, (customers, partners, or suppliers) using accounts and contracts.
- Order Management
- The Order Management subsystem supports managing orders starting from the capturing of an order (in the form of a shopping cart, or a purchase order), processing the order, providing status on the order, and any changes, holds, and returns processing. Processing the order integrates other order-related services such as pricing, adjustments and changes, taxation, payment, inventory, and fulfillment. Other order management capabilities include: quick order or buy, scheduled orders, multiple pending orders, re-orders, and splitting or back-orders. The inventory functions include recording inventory received from vendors to support availability to promise (ATP) and inventory returned by customers; adjusting inventory quantities; recording the disposition of returned inventory; and shipping and receiving inventory.
- Member
- The Member subsystem supports the set of participants involved in direct channel sales and value chains. A member can be a user, a group of users (also known as a member group), or an organizational entity (which can be an organization or an organizational unit within an organization). Services within the Member subsystem support member registration, administration, and profile management. Other services which are closely related to the Member subsystem include access control, security, authentication, and session management.
- Server run time
- The server run time provides a framework in which the commerce subsystems
are deployed and executed. The run time supports a programming model, which
consists of a model-view-controller framework, exception handling, transaction
control, data access, and an object framework. The server run time leverages
the J2EE environment and run time services provided by WebSphere Application
Server to support WebSphere Commerce Server applications. The server run time
takes advantage of many features available in the WebSphere Application Server.
WebSphere Commerce is a J2EE based application:
- WebSphere Commerce uses JavaServer Pages (JSPs) to provide dynamic Web pages for storefronts and its browser-based tools. This helps separate the presentation logic from the business logic. WebSphere Commerce provides a set of data beans to display commerce assets, such as customer, catalog, and order information. Using the WebSphere Studio page design tool, a store developer can drop these beans onto a JSP.
- WebSphere Commerce uses Enterprise JavaBeans. Developers can access data in the system, such as data objects, without being bound directly to the underlying database schema. The common server run time provides a set of entity beans for the base schema. Application developers can customize the business logic and modify the entity objects by extending the base schema and re-mapping the entity objects. This process is accomplished by using the WebSphere Studio Application Developer enterprise bean mapping tool.
- The WebSphere Commerce Server runs inside a WebSphere Application Server process. Use the WebSphere Application Server Administrator's Console to manage these processes. Multiple server processes can be cloned within a WebSphere Application Server instance for workload balancing and availability.
- Business Context Engine
- The subsystems and the server run time are powered by a context engine that
provides all of the components with the necessary business context. All
transactions are governed by the following constructs:
- Entitlement
- Entitlement governs customers access to various aspects of a store, such as what products they can purchase from a store, the price they pay for a product, and what payment methods a store will accept from them.
- Stores
- The store context controls the overall environment in which business assets are managed and transactions take place.
- Personalization
- Personalization improves the customer's experience by tailoring the site according to a number of criteria, including how a customer is segmented or grouped, or their profile information, shopping cart contents, and purchase history.
- Globalization
- The globalization context governs how the site behaves according to the locale of the person interacting with the store. The context includes both language and currency information as matched to the language and currency supported by the store.
Commerce Enablement
WebSphere Commerce facilitates commerce by incorporating the following components:
- Integration
- The WebSphere Commerce Server can be integrated with other applications by way of its messaging facilities and programming model. In conjunction with WebSphere Business Integrator (acting as the broker, or hub, for messages), one can integrate the business processes within the server with internal systems, or external partners and suppliers. The server also provides a framework for integrating with various Web-oriented marketplace and procurement protocols.
- Analytics
- WebSphere Commerce provides advanced analytic capabilities using WebSphere Commerce Analyzer. The built-in data mart, OLAP cubes, mining models, and reports will improve your ability to understand your customers usage of your site, and will facilitate adapting your site to better suit their needs as a direct result of the closed loop analytics.
- Collaboration
- WebSphere Commerce also supports collaboration, both among the site development team, and directly between customer service representatives and your customers in real time.
WebSphere Platform
Underpinning all of WebSphere Commerce is the WebSphere software platform: the industry leading infrastructure software for on demand e-business. The fundamental aspects of the WebSphere platform include the following:
- Business Portals
- WebSphere Business Portals help extend and personalize the user experience. This helps increase the satisfaction of customers, employees, partners, and suppliers, the value chain of the enterprise. By compartmentalizing your application into portlets, you provide small parts, from which customers and employees alike can selectively request. The end result delivers exactly the desired information on demand. Furthermore, you have the ability to update pieces as necessary.
- Foundation and Tools
- The WebSphere Application Server is an industry-leading Java-based application environment for building, deploying, and managing Internet and intranet Web applications. WebSphere Application Server also provides the run-time support for JSP files.
- Business Integration
- WebSphere Business Integration delivers five key capabilities to accelerate
the transformation into an on demand business:
- Model and simulate business processes that can be instantly updated
- Integrate people, processes, information, and systems throughout your enterprise
- Connect with your customers and partners for an efficient business-to-business enterprise
- Monitor business processes from start to finish, using real-time performance data
- Manage your business more efficiently with the capability to review, analyze and improve processes and performance
For more information on the WebSphere Commerce Server, refer to the WebSphere Commerce Programming Guide and Tutorials.