ECT 250: Survey of ecommerce technology

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ECT 250 Survey of e-commerce technology

• E-commerce hardware and software

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Web servers

• The components of a web server are
• Hardware
• Software
• When determining what sort of server hardware
• and software to use you have to consider
• Size of the site
• Purpose of the site
• Traffic on the site
• A small, noncommercial Web site will require
• less resources than a large, commercial site.

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The role of a web server

• Facilitates business
• Business to business transactions
• Business to customer transactions
• Hosts company applications
• Part of the communications infrastructure
• Poor decisions about web server platforms can
• have a negative impact on a company. This is
• particularly true for purely online (click and
• mortar) companies.

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Hosting considerations

• Will the site be hosted in-house or by a
  provider?
• Factors to consider
• The bandwidth and availability needed for the
• expected size, traffic, and sales of the site
• Scalability If the Web site needs to grow or
  has
• a sudden increase in traffic, can the provider
• still handle it?
• Personnel requirements or restraints
• Budget and cost effectiveness of the solution
• Target audience Business-to-customer (B2C) or
• business-to-business (B2B)

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Types of Web sites

• Development sites A test site low-cost
• Intranets Available internally only
• B2B and B2C commerce sites
• Content delivery site
• Each type of site has a different purpose,
• requires different hardware and software,
• and incurs varying costs.

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Commerce sites

• Commerce sites must be available 24 hours a day,
• 7 days a week. Requirements include
• Reliable servers
• Backup servers for high availablity
• Efficient and easily upgraded software
• Security software
• Database connectivity
• B2B sites also require certificate servers to
  issue
• and analyze electronic authentication information.

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Content delivery site

• Examples
• USA Today
• New York Times
• ZDNet
• Sell and deliver content news, summaries,
• histories, other digital information.
• Hardware requirements are similar to the
• commerce sites.
• Database access must be efficient.

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What is Web hosting?

• Web hosts are Internet service providers who also
• allow access to
• E-commerce software
• Storage space
• E-commerce expertise
• You can choose
• Managed hosting the service provider manages
• the operation and oversight of all servers
• Unmanaged hosting the customer must maintain
• and oversee all servers

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Benefits

• Cost effective for small companies or those
  without
• in-house technical staff.
• May require less investment in
  hardware/software.
• Can eliminate the need to hire and oversee
  technical
• personnel.
• Make sure that the site is scalable.
• If you need help in choosing a Web host, contact
• the Web Host Guild. Formed in 1998, it is a sort
• of Better Business Bureau of the Internet.

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Services provided

• Access to hardware, software, personnel
• Domain name, IP address
• Disk storage
• Template pages to use for designing the site
• E-mail service
• Use of FTP to upload and download information
• Shopping cart software
• Multimedia extensions (sound, animation, movies)
• Secure credit card processing

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Summary

• ISPs have Web hosting expertise that small or
• medium-sized companies may not.
• Creating and maintaining a Web site using an
• existing network can be difficult.
• With the exception of large companies with large
• Web sites and in-house computer experts, it is
• almost always cheaper to use outside Web
• hosting services.

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Examples

• EZ Webhost
• Interland
• HostPro
• HostIndex
• Managed hosting
• Other hosting options
• TopHosts.com

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B2C e-commerce

• Requirements
• A catalog display
• Shopping cart capabilities
• Transaction processing
• Tools to populate the store catalog and to
• facilitate storefront display choices
• Any e-commerce software must be integrated
• with existing systems
• Database
• Transaction processing software

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Catalog display

• Small storefront (fewer than 35 items)
• Simple listing of products
• No particular organization
• Example Quebec maple syrup
• Larger catalog
• Store product information in database
• More sophisticated navigation aids
• Better product organization
• Search engine
• Example LL Bean

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Shopping carts

• Early e-commerce shopping used forms-based
• check out methods. Required writing down
• product codes, unit prices, etc.
• A shopping cart
• Keeps track of items selected
• Allows you to view the items in a cart
• Allows you to change quantities of items
• Because the Web is stateless, information must
• be stored for retrieval. One way to do this is
• to use cookies, bits of information stored on
• the clients computer.

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Transaction processing

• Usually performed with a secure connection.
• May require the calculation of
• Sales tax
• Shipping costs
• Volume discounts
• Tax-free sales
• Special promotions
• Time sensitive offers
• Details about transactions must be tracked for
• accounting, sales reports.

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B2B e-commerce

• Business-to-business e-commerce requires tools
  and
• capabilities different from those required for
  business-
• to-customer systems.
• Encryption
• Authentication
• Digital signatures
• Signed receipt notices
• The ability to connect to existing legacy
  systems,
• including Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
• software. ERP integrates all facets of a
  business
• including planning, sales, and marketing.

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Levels of packages

• Three levels of e-commerce packages
• Basic Requires a few hundred dollars in fees
• and less than an hour to set up. Typically
• hosted by an ISP.
• Middle-tier Ranges in price from 1K to 5K,
• and can take from one day to several days to
• set up. Can connect with a database server.
• Requires hardware purchase and some skills.
• Enterprise-class For large companies with high
• traffic and transaction volumes. Hardware and
• in-house specialists needed.

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Basic packages

• Basic packages are free or low-cost e-commerce
• software supplied by a Web host for building
  sites
• to be placed on the Web hosts system.
• Fundamental services
• Banner advertising exchanges
• Full-service mall-style hosting

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Fundamental services

• Available for businesses selling less than 50
  items with
• a low rate of transactions.
• These services offer
• Space for the store
• Forms-based shopping
• The Web host makes money from advertising
  banners
• placed on the site. Each business has some
  control
• over which banners are placed on its site.
• Examples Bizland.com, HyperMart
• Drawbacks E-mail transaction processing,
  banners.

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Banner exchange sites

• Banner exchange sites aid online store
  promotion.
• Banner exchange agreements are made between
• sites that sign up for the service.
• The BES organizes the exchanges, enforces banner
• exchange rules, collects statistics about
  customers,
• and rotates ads on the sites.
• A click through count is the number of visitors
  that
• a banner produces at a site.
• Examples Banner Exchange, Exchange-it,
• SmartClicks

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Full-service mall-style hosting

• Full-service hosting sites provide
• High-quality tools
• Storefront templates
• An easy-to-use interface
• Quick Web page creation and maintenance
• No required banner advertising
• In exchange these sites may charge
• One-time set up fees
• Monthly fees
• A percentage of each transaction
• A fixed amount per each transaction

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Differences from basic services

• Shopping cart software
• Comprehensive customer transaction processing
• Choice of purchase options (credit card,
• electronic cash or other forms)
• Acceptance and authorization of credit cards
• No required (and distracting) Web banner ads
• Higher quality Web store building/maintenance
• tools (saving time and energy)
• Examples Yahoo!Store, BigStep.com

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Midrange packages

• Distinction from basic e-commerce packages
• The merchant has explicit control over
• Merchandising choices
• Site layout
• Internal architecture
• Remote and local management options
• Other differences include price, capability,
• database connectivity, software portability,
• software customization tools, computer
• expertise required of the merchant.

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Features

• Prices range from 2000 to 9000.
• Hosted on the merchants server.
• Typically has connectivity with complex database
• systems and stores catalog information.
• Several provide connections (hooks) into
  existing
• inventory and ERP systems.
• Highly customizable
• Requires part-time or full-time programming
  talent.
• Examples INTERSHOP efinity, WebSphere Commerce
• Suite

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Enterprise solutions

• Distinguishing features
• Price (25,000 - 1 million)
• Extensive support for B2B e-commerce
• Interacts with a variety of back office systems,
  
• such as database, accounting, and ERP.
• Requires one or more dedicated computers, a
• Web front-end, firewall(s), a DNS server, an
• SMTP system, an HTTP server, an FTP server,
• and a database server.

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Features

• Good tools for linking supply and purchasing.
• Can interact with the inventory system to make
• the proper adjustments to stock, issue purchase
• orders, and generate accounting entries.
• Example Wal-Mart
• Allows several suppliers to make decisions
• about resupplying
• Results in cost savings in inventory
• Examples WebSphere Commerce Suite, Netscape
• CommerceXpert

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Web platform choices

• Hardware, operating system, and application
  server
• software must be considered together since each
• affects the other.
• Whatever your choice you must ensure that the
• server hardware is scalable, meaning that it can
  be
• upgraded or a new server added as necessary.
• Other needs, such as a database server, should
  be
• handled by separate hardware. Database products
• have large processing needs.

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Factors in performance

• Hardware and operating system choice
• Speed of connection to the Internet
• User capacity
• Throughput The number of HTTP requests
• that can be processed in a given time period.
• Response time The amount of time a server
• requires to process one request.
• The mix and type of Web pages
• Static pages
• Dynamic pages Shaped in response to users.

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Benchmarking

• Benchmarking is testing used to compare the
• performance of hardware and software.
• Results measure the performance of aspects such
• as the OS, software, network speed, CPU speed.
• There are several Web benchmarking programs.
• For examples see Figure 3-4 on page 87.
• Anyone considering buying a server for a heavy
• traffic situation or wanting to make changes to
• an existing system should consider benchmarks.

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Web server features

• Web server features range from basic to
  extensive
• depending on the software package being used.
• Web server features fall into groups based on
  their
• purpose
• Core capabilities
• Site management
• Application construction
• Dynamic content
• Electronic commerce

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Core capabilities

• Process and respond to Web client requests
• Static pages, dynamic pages, domain name
• translation.
• Security
• Name/passwords, processing certificates and
• public/private key pairs.
• FTP, Gopher
• Searching, indexing
• Data analysis
• Who, what, when, how long? May involve the
• use of Web log analysis software.

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Site management

• Features found in site management tools
• Link checking
• Script checking
• HTML validation
• Web server log file analysis
• Remote server administration

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Application construction

• Uses Web editors and extensions to produce Web
• pages, both static and dynamic.
• Like HTML editors, application editors allow the
• creation dynamic features without knowledge of
• CGI (Common Gateway Interface) or API
• (Application Program Interface) programming.
• Also detects HTML code that differs from the
• standard or is browser specific.

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Dynamic content

• Non-static information constructed in response
  to
• to a Web clients request.
• Assembled from backend databases and internal
• data on the Web site, a successful dynamic page
• is tailored to the query that generated it.
• Active Server Pages (ASP) is a server-side
  scripting
• mechanism to build dynamic sites and Web
• applications. It uses a variety of languages
  such
• as VBScript, Jscript, and Perl.
• More information? Take ECT 353!

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Electronic commerce

• An Web server handles Web pages whereas an
• e-commerce server deals with the buying and
• selling of goods and services.
• A Web server should handle e-commerce software
• since this simplifies adding e-commerce features
• to existing sites.
• Features Creation of graphics, product
  information,
• addition of new products, shopping carts, credit
• card processing, sales report generation, Web ad
• rotation and weighting.

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Web server software

• There is no best package for all cases.
• The market is divided into intranet servers and
• public Web servers.
• Three of the most popular Web server programs
• Apache HTTP Server
• Microsoft Internet Information Server
• Netscape Enterprise Server
• See Figure 3-8 for the market share graph.
• A more recent market share analysis.

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Apache HTTP Server

• Developed by Rob McCool while at UI in the
• NCSA in 1994.
• The software is available free of charge and is
• quite efficient.
• Can be used for intranets and public Web sites.
• Originally written for Unix, it is now available
• for many operating systems.
• For a discussion of its features see the Apache
• Software Foundation page.

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Microsoft IIS

• Microsofts Internet Information Server comes
• bundled with Microsofts Windows NT/2000.
• Can be used for intranets and public Web sites.
• It is suitable for everything from small sites
  to
• large enterprise-class sites with high volumes.
• Currently only runs on Windows NT/2000.
• See Microsofts Web Services page.

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Netscape Enterprise Server

• Costs several thousand dollars and has a 60-day
• trial period.
• Can be run on the Internet, intranets and
  extranets.
• Some of the busiest sites on the Internet use
  NES
• including ETrade, Excite, and Lycos.
• Runs on many different operating systems.
• See Netscape Server Products.

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Further information

• What Web software is running on a site?
• Web server side-by-side comparisons

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Web server tools

• Other Web server tools include
• Web portals
• Search engines
• Push technologies
• Intelligent agents

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Web portals

• Provides a cyber door on the Web
• Serves as a customizable home base
• Successful portals include
• Excite
• Yahoo!
• My Netscape
• Microsoft Passport

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Push technologies

• An automated delivery of specific and current
• information from a Web server to the users
• hard drive
• May be used to provide information on
• Health benefit updates
• Employee awards
• Changes in corporate policies

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Intelligent agents

• A program that performs functions such as
• information gathering, information filtering,
• or mediation on behalf of a person or entity
• Examples
• AuctionBot
• BargainFinder
• MySimon
• Kasbah

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Example uses

• Example uses for intelligent agents
• Search for the best price and characteristics
• of various products
• Procurement Deciding what, when, and how
• much to purchase
• Stock alert Monitors stock and notifies when
• certain conditions are met, e.g. purchase 100
• shares if the price is below 60 a share.