Electronic Commerce and Database Issues

1
Electronic Commerce and Database Issues

• Serge Abiteboul
• INRIA
• EDBT Summer School -- April 1999

2
Overview

• 1. Introduction
• 2. Business models
• Web-catalog, procurement, auctions
• Portals
• 3. Enabling technologies
• Digital currency, cryptography, EDI
• 4. Active Views
• 5. Conclusions and bibliography

3
1. INTRODUCTION
4
Electronic commerce

• Commerce n. buying and selling, all forms of
  trading, including banking, insurance, etc.
• the Oxford dictionary
• Electronic commerce Commerce using computers and
  networks
• my definition

5
Introduction Goals

• Increase the speed, efficiency of business
  transactions
• Improve services and customer support
• Decrease costs using computers and network
  technology
• In short increase profit

6
Introduction Web catalog

• Software to allow customers to buy some products
  on the Web
• All kinds of goods
• Must manage everything
• customer search for product
• provide all information about product
• ordering, billing, payment
• delivery
• customer support, etc.

7
Main goals of Web catalog

• facilitate search for product
• enable small business to reach out
• marketing, promotions
• personalized for more efficiency
• promote new brand/product
• fast reaction adapt to market, reduce inventory,
  get ride of old stuff

8
Introduction procurement

• Process for a company of acquiring all products
  it needs
• Based on special deals with specific partners
• Based on the rules of the companies (and
  regulations for the government)
• Search, order, approval, delivery,
  (internal/external) billing, support, etc.

9
Introduction procurement

• Reduce processing costs
• Reduce processing time
• Reduce errors
• EC means connection between the computerized
  applications of all parties in business
  transactions all virtual / paperless business
  transactions

10
What kind of data?

• Catalog large amount of multimedia data
• Distributed data
• Transaction data, e.g. orders
• Stock management
• User profile, temporal data
• Knowledge on products and customers

11
Legacy data and interoperability

• Inventory and pricing Relational Databases
• Customer data Specific Application
• Catalog textual format
• Payment systems off the shelf boxes allowing a
  variety of payment modes
• Existing ordering system

12
Simplified product data

• Product-basic all products
• categoryelectronic, subcategorysound,
• nameGismo223, codeF2GHYYRF,
• selling-price1200FF
• Product-specific for Gismos
• voltagelist(110,220), Gismo-normGHTF333
• External resources
• descriptionhttp//m.ec.fr/cat/Gismo
• reviewshttp//reviews.com/Gismo
• Private data
• buying-price100, quantity-in-stock20000,
  supplierCamif, authorized-discount30

relational database
XML repository
Web resources
other database
13
Same data in XML

• ltproductgt
• ltbasicgt
• ltcatgt electronic ltsubcat gtsound lt/subcatgtltcatgt
• ltngtGismo223 lt/ngtltcgtF2GHYYRFlt/cgt
• ltsp currencyFrench-francgt1200lt/spgt lt/basicgt
• ltspecificgt
• ltvgt110lt/vgtltvgt220lt/vgt
• ltGismo-normgtGHTF333lt/Gismo-normgt lt/specificgt
• ltexternalgt lt/externalgt
• ltprivategt
• ltbp currencydollargt100lt/bpgt ltqisgt20000lt/qisgt,
  ltsgtCamiflt/sgt ltadgt30lt/adgtlt/privategtlt\productgt

14
What kind of data processing?

• On Line Transaction Processing
• On Line Analytical Processing
• Data Warehouse
• Data Mining
• Workflow Management
• Subscription, publishing, push technology

15
2. BUSINESS MODELS
16
Business Models

• B2C business to customer
• e.g., Web catalog
• B2B business to business
• e.g., procurement
• B2G business to government
• restrictive due to regulations

17
2.1 Some business modelsB2C Web catalog
Customer
Vendor
Third party (bank)
18
More on Web catalogs

• Product description and search. Branch out to
  external resources (news articles), annotations
  by customers, chat rooms
• Interactivity. At least emails. Talks
• Dynamic updates adjust prices in real time,
  advertisements, promotions, etc.
• Personalized
• Logging

19
B2C E-Mall
Customer
E-Mall
Third party (bank)
Vendor
Vendor
Third party (bank)
Vendor
Third party (bank)
Vendor
Third party (bank)
Vendor
Third party (bank)
20
B2C Comparative Shopping

• http//www.addall.com
• 24 bookstores searched in about 10 seconds
• between 42 and 78
• thats why people will use them!

21
B2B or B2C Auction

• Public sale in which each article is sold to
  highest bidder
• Based on trust auctioneer and 3rd party
• Both B2C and B2B
• Integration in corporate business process
• B2B predicated large growth
• Automatic selection of bids game theory

22
Auction
Bidding
Customer
Auctioneer
Third party (bank)
Vendor
Vendor
Vendor
Vendor
Many kinds of auctions classic, Dutch, candle...
23
More Complex Models

• Transaction attributes quantity, packaging,
  delivery, support, insurancepayment attributes
• Coupons, frequent flyers, promotions, cash back
  offers, 2 for 1, free trials, free samples, cross
  sales, upsales, contests, subscription, loyalty
  awards
• Many more to be invented

24
2.2 Situation

• B2B
• still limited to large companies
• large potential for growth
• must adapt to business rules of all partners
• growth with complex models such as auctions
• B2G
• very big growth under pressure of US, EC, etc
• US all bidding use EDI by 1999

25
Situation -- B2C

• Products
• computer products 32
• travel 24
• entertainment 19
• gifts flowers 10
• food drinks 5

• hard to install need more personalization
• about 400 growth per year last 4 years
• Virtual electronic magazines, X, insurance...

26
B2C

• Stores
• big chains like wal-mart (US), camif (France)
• very dynamic SMEs
• Services
• traditional banks, insurance, etc.
• new virtual ones (banks without physical
  counters)
• Virtual malls

27
2.4 Portals

• One stop shopping for any information inside or
  outside the company (shopping mall for knowledge)
• Enterprise information portal
• Web portal (my.netscape.com or my.yahoo.com)

28
Portals

• Heterogeneity
• reports (word,ps,html,..), newsgroup, email,
  spreadsheets, newspapers, analytic tools, etc.
• Data integration

29
Portals
Web access
Publishsubscribe engine Crawlerfilter
engine Security manager Request broker Business
intelligence Output/Delivery

Data Warehouse
Web browsers
OLAP
Web browsers
Web server
Image video
Web browsers
reports
Information repository
30
Some Portal Rules from Wayne Eckerson

• Designed for casual users
• Intuitive classification and searching
• Collaborative sharing
• Intelligent routing
• Integrated tools query, report, olap, drill
  through to data

• Server-based (many concurrent users)
• API access
• Security flexible permissioning
• Easy to deploy (thin client)
• Easy to customize and personalize

31
Standard issuesData conversion and integration

• Wrapper technology -- data conversion
• Mediator technology -- data integration
• Data Warehouse -- consistency maintenance
• Fast data loading
• Management of replication, update propagation
• Query rewriting query optimization

32
Less standard issues

• Task sequencing looking for a biblio ref
• check first some selected sites
• if no success, look in others
• transform the biblio in BibTex format and add to
  personal bibliography
• propose a search for the report in other
  resources
• Change control Query subscription

zoom
33
Query subscription changes

• Changes in label graphs as in DOEM

Catalog
code
Gismos78
product
category
sub
electronic
price
234
278
34
Query subscription changes

• Change value of atomic vertex value
• Creation of new vertex
• Addition/removal of an edge
• Change of the label on an edge add/remove
• Move a vertex add/remove
• annotations on edges and vertexes

35
Query subscription queries

• select P.code, P.description
• from Catalog.product P
• where P.price ltchangedgtQ vertex annotation
• where P.ltaddedgtdescription edge annotation
• where P.price data in annotation
• ltchanged ltoldQ, date TgtgtQ
• and Q - Q gt 100 and T gt 99/04/03

36
Query subscription examples

• On the first of each month, send me the list of
  all products in my interest list such that their
  price increased by more than 10
• Each time there are ten new employees, send me
  their names and departments
• Notify me if the price of this house decreases
• similarity on event when condition do action

37
Query subscription management

• Detect the event
• date, changes, combined changes
• Evaluate the condition
• incremental evaluation
• Perform the action
• Combined evaluation for thousands of customers

38
Goals in all cases personalization fast
deployment robustness and correctness
39
3. ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES
40
3.1 EDI -- B2B

• EDI Electronic Data Interchange
• Standard for business data exchange
• 2 standards
• ANSI X12 in US
• EDIFACT in world - UN committee
• Collect elements in databases
• translate ? EDI ? transmit
• 90 of fortune 100 10 others

41
(No Transcript)
42

• lt!DOCTYPE Book-Order PUBLIC "-//Editor//DTD Book
  Order Message//EN"gt
• ltBook-Order Supplier"4012345000094"
  Send-to"http//www.bic.org/order.in"gt
• lttitlegtEditor Lite-EDI Book Orderinglt/titlegt
  ltOrder-Nogt967634lt/Order-Nogt
• ltMessage-Dategt19961002lt/Message-Dategt
  ltBuyer-EANgt5412345000176lt/Buyer-EANgt
• ltOrder-Line Reference-No"0528837"gt
• ltISBNgt0316907235lt/ISBNgt
• ltAuthor-TitlegtLabaln, Brian/Chromelt/Author-Titlegt
  
• ltQuantitygt2lt/Quantitygt
• lt/Order-Linegt
• ltOrder-Line Reference-No"0528838"gt
• ltISBNgt0856674427lt/ISBNgt
• ltAuthor-TitlegtParry, Linda (ed)/William
  Morrislt/Author-Titlegt
• ltQuantitygt1lt/Quantitygt
• lt/Order-Linegtltinput type"checkbox"
  name"partial" value"allowed"/gt
• lttextgtTick here if a delayed/partial supply of
  order is acceptablelt/textgt
• ltinput type"checkbox" name"confirmation"
  value"requested"/gt
• lttextgtTick here if Confirmation of Acceptance of
  Order is to be returned by e-maillt/textgt
• ltinput type"checkbox" name"DeliveryNote"
  value"required"/gt

This data in XML/EDI
43
EDI

• layers
• business application level (specific to
  company s software)
• EDI standard layer -- data exchange
• communication layer (email, point to
  point/telnet, www)
• typically moving from email to www

44
EDI messages

• Data element purchase order number, quantity,
  unit price
• Data segment Group of data element that convey
  information. E.g., invoice term, shipping
  information
• Transaction set business document. E.g.,
  purchase order (made of segments)

45
3.2 Digital Currency

• Relies on network for transmission
• Relies on cryptography for security in open
  network environment
• Relies on connections with standard financial
  system
• Goal reduce costs, improve services

46
Digital Currency

•  smart cards 
• require accounts
• credit card billing at end of billing cycle
• debit card/ payment at end of billing cycle
• debit card/ deposit deduct at each purchase
• electronic money
• micro/mini payment

47
Electronic Money

• Digital cash or E-token
• should be bank certified
• exchangeable with other forms of payment
• tamper resistant
• storable
• transactions via 3rd party (e.g., First virtual)
• Bearer certificate (like cash) - whoever holds
  the certificate holds the value

48
Micro and Mini Payments

• More than 80 of purchases are less than 20
• Micro lt 0.15
• Issue is cost Standard payment such as credit
  card cost too much for those
• Digicash, Netbill, Millicent, Payword, MicroMint,
  Agora...

49
Smart card

• Processor, e.g. Java card
• Capable of loading/running several applications
  -- one card with bank digicash frequent
  fliers agenda address book ...
• Cryptography
• Personal data
• Mobile computing

50
3.3 Cryptography

• Public Key Encryption
• 2 keys public pK and secret sK
• to send a message M send e(pK,M)
• sK is needed to decrypt the message, i.e.,
  d(sK,e(pK,M)) M
• no need to send keys over the network
• Rivest-Shamir-Adlemam prime numbers

51
RSA

• pK (N,p), sK (N,s) all integers
• M is a number less than N (break message)
• e(pK,M) Mp mod N
• d(sK,M) Ms mod N
• d(sK,e(pK,M)) Mps mod N
• use 3 large (100 bits) primes s gt x, y
• N xy ps mod (x-1)(y-1) 1
• Mps mod N M

52
RSA

• Feasible (not easy) to do arithmetic with big
  numbers
• Feasible (not easy) to obtain 3 large prime
  numbers
• N xy and N is public
• Factorizing N given p is not unfeasible

53
Other property of RSA

• To obtain signatures
• e(pK,d(sK,M)) M
• to sign a message M,
• we append d(sK,M)
• verification e(pK, d(sK,M)) M

54
3.4 Verification

• Verify
• the correctness of a business protocol
• the robustness of a mode of payment in case of
  failure
• fairness of an auction system
• etc.
• Code verification, model checking, etc.

55
4. ACTIVE VIEWS
56
Active Views

• System developed at INRIA
• Core technology for portals
• Long term goals
• Declarative specification of data intensive
  applications
• Ease of use and fast deployment
• (Automatic) verification

57
Architecture
JAVA
AVApi
DOM
O2
Java application
O2 Notification
Java RMI
XML repository
ACTIVEVIEWS MANAGER
Web Browser
Java Client
58
Motivations

• Database Applications
• passive behavior
• closed systems
• persistence, concurrency, access control
• New needs
• e-Commerce, cooperative work
• reactive behavior
• fast deployment
• activity control, ...

59
Architecture
AVServeur
AVClient
DB application
AVServeur
AVClient
60
Illustration of activities in ActiveViews

• Notification
• Change control

61
Notification
AVServer
order
AVClient
notify
notify
AVServer
AVClient
62
Change control
3 Modification
AVServer
4 Write
AVClient
1 Read
6 Notification
2 Read
7.Read
5 Notification
AVServer
AVClient
63
Choices

• All XML
• XML repository
• XML query language
• XML views
• Declarative specification
• almost no code to write
• compilation to an executable application
• active rules

64
Important Aspects

• Activities and workflow
• active rules
• logical traces
• notifications

65
On-going Research

• XML storage under non generic form
• XML query language
• Update detection and incremental propagation
• Rule management

66
5. CONCLUSION AND BIBLIOGRAPHY
67
Main characteristics

• Like all Web stuff, very rapidly growing
• Very competitive business
• Too expensive to install for small businesses
• Too complicated to modify/react
• Little/No personalization
• Not user friendly

68
Some technical challengesData

• Management of heterogeneous data conversion,
  integration
• Management of semistructured data
  (irregularities), XML-query optimization
• Management of changes (detection, propagation,
  consistency, etc.) and temporal aspects
• Management of large number of user views
  (personalized)

69
Some technical challengesKnowledge

• knowledge description by vendors who are not
  computer scientists
• product description
• business rules
• specification of applications by non computer
  scientists
• customization/personalization

70
Some technical challenges control

• Rule management
• large number of users
• Management of
• Distribution
• Scalability
• Declarative specification of applications
• Program Verification

71
Some technical challengesuser interfaces

• Very flashy Web interfaces
• Very powerful tools XSL, cascading stylesheets
• Automatic translation, language recognition, etc.
• Systems still often very hard to use.
• Interfaces very hard to develop.

72
Bibliography

• Electronic commerce, N. Adam et al, Prentice
  Hall, 1999
• Frontiers of electronic commerce, Kalakota and
  Whinston, Addison Wesley, 1996
• Digital money, D.C. Lynch and L. Lundquist, John
  Wiley, 1996
• (RSA) A method for obtaining digital signatures
  and public key cryptosystems, Rivest et al
  Communications ACM, 1978
• Sabre, D.G. Copeland et al, IEEE Annals of
  History of Computing, 1995 (airline reservation
  system)

• Some Web catalogs
• http//www.amazon.com
• http//www.dell.com
• http//www.wal-mart.com
• http//www.geocities.com/WallStreet/Floor/5815
  (xml/edi)
• http//www.w3.org (web consortium,xml)
• http//www.sewp.nasa.gov (example of procurement)
• digital currencies
• http//www.firstvirtual.com
• http//www.digicash.com
• http//www.computerworld.com/ecommerce (surveys)

73
More EC resources

• E-Commerce Times http//www.ecommercetimes.com/
• Net Business http//www.techweb.com/netbiz/
• allECommerce http//www.allEC.com
• Thomson EC Resources http//www.ecresources.com/
• ZDNet http//www.zdnet.com/enterprise/e-business/
  
• Association for internet commerce
  http//www.commercenet.net
• Data warehouse institute www.dw-institute.com
• http//www.addall.com comparative shopping