CS5201 Introduction to eCommerce Technology

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CS5201 Introduction to eCommerce Technology

• Course Aim
• provides an introduction to the various
  technologies underlying electronic commerce
  systems and applications.

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CS5201 Introduction to eCmmerce Technology

• Learning Objectives
• Become aware of the latest developments in
  eCommerce and their implications for
  organizations.
• Appreciate the fundamental technologies for
  implementing eCommerce systems.
• Become aware of the security and transaction
  properties of eCommerce systems and their
  solutions.
• Become aware of some of the regulatory and legal
  issues of eCommerce.

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CS5201 Schedule

• Weeks 1 2, 4 - 13
• Min 70 attendance required

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CS5201 Assessment

• Coursework 100
• 3 assignments Weeks 2, 5, 9
• 1 quiz Week 13
• Acknowledge others work where appropriate
• Do not copy and paste from other sources

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CS5201 Introduction to eCommerce Technology

• References
• W Rajput E-Commerce Systems Architecture and
  Applications, Artech House 2000.
• Kennth Laudon, Carol Traver E-commerce
  business, technology, society, Addison Wesley
  2002.
• Other papers and links
• Note The books are for references only, as no
  single text covers all the course material.

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Process of Commerce

• Buyers find what they want, sellers advertise
  their goods and services
• Advertising, marketing
• Dealers, distributors, representatives
• Cutting best deal - Negotiation
• Transaction
• Contract (purchase order)
• Transaction processing
• Payment (fund transfer)
• Order fulfillment
• Inventory, Delivery

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Process of Commerce (Contd)

• Post-sales activities
• Customer services and support
• Inventory control
• Accounting
• Data Analysis
• Who buy what?
• Profitability
• Trends
• Discovered relationships

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Business drives for eCommerce

• Exposure to customer, better interaction and
  relationship
• Business partners requirements
• Competitive edge/pressure
• New business opportunities
• New marketing (e.g. one-to-one) methods
• Global presence
• Temporal freedom
• Branding opportunities
• Business process efficiency improvement

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The Electronic Supply Chain
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Requirements on Technologies

• Ubiquitous reachability
• Any process can communicate with any other
  process.
• Network, global Internet, mobile technologies
• Applications and processing support
• Machine and software
• Database, search engine
• Transaction processing

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Requirements on Technologies (Contd)

• Contents development and data interchange
• Authoring tools
• Multimedia tools
• Document description languages (HTML, XML)
• Protection and security
• information security, transaction security
• Intellectual property protection

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Applying Technologies

• What technologies can be applied to
  assist/enhance the process of commerce?
• Buyers and sellers finding each other
• Advertisement and marketing
• Using the Web and e-mail
• Electronic shop fronts, catalogues
• Push channels
• Search engines
• Portals
• Main technologies Web, Multimedia, Search
  engine, Database, intelligent agent

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Applying Technologies (Contd)

• Negotiation
• Intelligent agents
• Transaction
• Electronic shop fronts - order capture
• Transaction processing system
• Other types of transactions - auctioning, voting,
  etc.
• payment
• Credit cards/SSL
• Electronic payment protocols (e.g. SET)
• Digital cash
• Electronic cheques
• Electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP)

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Applying Technologies (Contd)

• Order fulfillment
• Manufacturing systems
• Delivery (Inventory and order tracking system)
• Supply chain management
• Post sales activities
• Customer service (through Web and e-mail), CRM
• Automatic inventory management
• Accounting
• Transaction processing
• Interoperability (on-line system, legacy systems)

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Applying Technologies (Contd)

• Data Analysis
• Data Mining
• Discovering trends and useful information for
  planning
• Challenges
• Access and transactions can be done any where
  (mobility), any time.
• Linking everything together into a coherent
  system. Requires protocol standards, data
  interchange technologies.

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Progress of Underlying Technologies

• Processor speed
• 1970 1 MIPS
• 2002 2,500 MIPS (2,500 folds)
• Main memory
• 1970 128 KBytes
• 2002 256 Mbytes (2,000 folds)
• Costs
• 1970 10,000,000
• 2002 10,000 (10,000 folds)

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Progress of Underlying Technologies (Contd)

• disk storage
• 1970 10 MByte
• 2002 60,000 MByte (6,000 folds)
• Communication speeds
• 1970 Modem 300 bps
• 2000 Modem 56 kbps
• T1 line 1.544 Mbps
• FDDI, 100BaseT 100 Mbps
• Internet 2 1,000 Mbps
• Todays Mobile 9.6 kbps
• 3G Mobile (2003) 300 Kbps/2 Mbps
• 4G Mobile (2011) 50 Mbps

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Key eCommerce Technologies

• Infrastructure
• Networking technologies
• Security technologies
• Mobile technologies
• Tools
• Client and server components
• Content development and Interchange (HTML, XML)
• Internet programming
• Multimedia
• Database

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Key eCommerce Technologies

• Tools (Contd)
• Search engine
• Data mining
• Applications
• Payment protocols
• Auctioning
• Voting
• File sharing
• Intelligent agents
• Mass personalization
• etc.

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eCommerce Systems

• 3 categories
• B2B
• Chaining business partners electronically
  increased efficiency
• Create new functionalities and/or services
• B2C
• Provision of services and sales transactions to
  consumers through on-line applications
• Intranet
• Leverage internet technology to streamline
  intra-organization processes

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eCommerce Technology Networks the Internet

• Computer Networks
• Local area networks
• Limited geographic scope
• Low per port cost
• Operated by individual or organization
• Wide area networks
• Wide geographic scope
• Public network shared by users and operated by
  carrier company

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Networks the Internet (Contd)

• Local Area Network
• Design Goals
• Low per port cost
• High link speed
• Ease of maintenance
• Proven Technologies
• Ethernet (IEEE 802.3)
• Predominant for departmental LAN
• Token passing ring (IEEE 802.5)
• Required for some real-time systems
• Used in some organization backbone network (FDDI)

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Networks the Internet (Contd)

• Ethernet
• shared bus topology
• Initially invented at Xerox PARC for sharing
  printers and disks.
• Access protocol CSMA/CD
• Limitation Traffic congestion at high traffic
  level
• Non-deterministic access delay

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Networks the Internet (Contd) Ethernet
technology evolution

• Physical topology Star
• hub
• Maintenance ease
• High speed 100 Mpbs, 1000 Mbps
• Limited distance 100 m (Solution join smaller
  LANs)
• Switched ethernet (logically star as well)
• Hub becomes a switch (switching hub), no bus
  contention.
• higher total throughput

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Networks the Internet (Contd)

• Token passing ring
• Controlled transmission.
• Can configure for access delay bound - suitable
  for real-time applications.
• Often used in organization backbone (FDDI)
  networks.
• Performance characteristics
• No congestion, deterministic access delay

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Networks the Internet (Contd) Organization
network

• Design paradigm
• Build small departmental LANs
• Connect them together with network connection
  devices (router or bridges)

R
R
R
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Networks the Internet (Contd) Organization
network

• Switched network
• Departmental LANs
• ATM switching
• IP switching
• Current trend
• Can have multiple levels

switch
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Networks the Internet (Contd)Global Internet

• Ideal One network with global coverage
  accessible from anywhere.
• Reality Many heterogeneous networks
• Solution Interconnect these networks together
  (with routers)

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Networks the Internet (Contd)Global Internet

• Station connects to (organizations) network.
• Networks connected together by routers.
• N rest of Internet
• Internet

R
R
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Networks the Internet (Contd)Global Internet

• Protocol stacks
• Machines on local network N communicate using
  network N (native) protocol.
• Machines on Internet communicate using IP.
• Machine router remote router
  remote machine

IP
IP
IP
IP
N1
N1
N
NR
N
NR
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Networks the Internet (Contd)Global Internet
- IP address

• station identified by a unique address.
• IP version 4 address 32 bits
• Network id assigned centrally (by NIC).
• Host id assigned by network administration.
• IP address space not utilized efficiently -
  running out of addresses.
• IP version 6 uses 128-bit addresses
• 2128 gt 1038, world population ? 6 x 1010 gt 232
  ? 7 x 109
• adequate for every human and device in the world.

network id host id
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Networks the Internet (Contd)TCP

• Provides reliable connection oriented
  communication service.
• User process (on a host machine or router)
  addressed by a (16-bit) TCP port number.
• Process (service) address
• 144.214.56.20 80
• IP address port number
• Multiple application processes can reside on one
  machine (one IP address) using different port
  numbers.
• Used by application oriented protocols FTP,
  Telnet, HTTP, SMTP, POP, etc.

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Networks the Internet (Contd)Domain Names

• IP addresses
• contain routing information (network id) -
  physical location.
• are difficult to memorize by human
• Domain names
• reflects administrative organization.
• Easier to memorize.
• Name space arranged as a (DNS) tree structure.
• Naming authority is distributed.
• Translation from domain names to IP addresses
  handled by a distributed Domain Name Service
  (DNS).

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Networks the Internet (Contd)Domain Name
System

• com edu gov net org uk
  hk cn
• ibm cmu berkeley com edu
• cityu cuhk
• cschlee

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Internet Structure

• Complexity handled by hierarchical structure
• Internet backbone
• Regional carrier
• ISP
• organization network

R
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Overall Internet Structure

• Level 1 (interconnect level, NAPs)
• billions of pages per day
• Level 2 (national backbone)
• Federal Internet eXchange Points
• Peering agreements connect, share routing info)
• Level 3 (regional providers, state level)
• Level 4 (local ISP)
• Level 5 (companies, individuals)

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Internet host count (Contd)
1 BILLION AUG. 2005
100 MILLION JAN. 2001
10 MILLION JAN. 1996
Projected
1 MILLION JUL. 1992
SOURCE NGI
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Internet Population Q1, 2001

• Region millions
• World 420
• N. America 172.2 41
• Europe, M.East, Africa 113.4 27
• Asia Pacific (incl. Australia) 84 20
• Central, South Americas 16.8 4

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Internet Population Q1, 2001

• population having internet access
• from home from office
• Australia 50 30
• Denmark 58 38
• Finland 49 37
• France 22 17
• Germany 35 22
• Hong Kong 58 23
• Italy 34 14
• Netherlands 56 28
• Singapore 56 21
• South Korea 57 17
• Sweden 61 41
• Switzerland 43 31
• Taiwan 50 19
• UK 46 26

Source Nielsen//NetRatings
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Networks the Internet (Contd)Accessing the
Internet

• Direct connection to LAN which is connected to
  the Internet.
• Dial-up (or leased line) to a remote access
  server of an organization network or an ISP (see
  details)
• Extension to mobile
• dial-up ordinary mobile (cellular) service.
• Direct connection requires packet switching
  service.
• Interim (2001) 2.5G (GPRS)
• 3G (2003)

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Networks the Internet (Contd)Internet
Development

• Current problems
• Address space being exhausted.
• Bandwidth limited.
• Wide variations in delays.
• Not suitable for iso-synchronous data. E.g.,
  digitized audio or video.
• Last (broadband) mile to the home

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Networks the Internet (Contd)Internet
Development

• Next Generation Internet
• IP version 6
• Internet2 (high speed, Gbps)
• US trail
• HK trial being planned
• Internet poised to carry more real-time
  multimedia data, including telephony voice.
• Improving security
• 2.5G (2001) and 3G(2003) mobile access

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Tools Contents Development

• Content authoring
• HTML, DHTML, XTML
• Document Presentation description/rendering
• Content description
• XML
• Content language description XML
• Document structure description DTD, XML Schema
• Format description XSL
• Facilitate data interchange
• Abstract data types
• ASN.1
• Encoding rules
• ISO BER

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Tools Contents Development (Contd)

• Multimedia
• Representation, transmission requirements
• Text, graphics, speech, music, video, movies,
  virtual reality.
• Formats GIF, TIFF, JPEG, MPEG,
• Tools to create multimedia contents
• Capture, editing, display
• Manipulation with web programming tools
• (IT 5303 Multimedia Technologies Applications)

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Tools (Contd)

• Internet Programming
• Client-side programming
• JavaScript, Java Applets, ActiveX Controls, etc
• Server-side programming
• CGI, Perl Script, Java Servlets, Component
  technologies
• DataBase
• Connection
• Query languages
• (CS5281 Internet Application Development)

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Tools (Contd)

• Data Mining
• Web navigation information
• Server logs, cookies
• Extracting hidden relationships from large
  datasets
• Discover of patterns
• Useful for predicting the future
• Market baskets analysis
• Data Mining tools
• Visualization, Link analysis, deviation
  detection, etc.
• (CS5483 Data Warehousing and Data Mining)

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Tools (Contd)

• Search Engines
• Query interface
• Simplicity vs Descriptive power
• Retrieval methods
• Indexing, Document ranking
• Document clustering
• Multilingual issues
• Multimedia retreival
• Discovering web pages
• Registration, Crawlers and spiders
• (CS5286 Algorithms and Techniques for Web
  Searching)

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Networks the Internet

• Readings
• W.E. Rajput, E-Commerce Architecture
  Applications, Artech House 2000.
• Chapter 1