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IBM bundles a copy of its DB2 database manager and the Internet Connection Secure Server (ICSS) with Net.Commerce and, in contrast to Microsoft's product, IBM's electronic commerce software incorporates a current version of the proposed SET protocol as a built-in feature. Net.Comme rce runs on AIX in addition to Windows NT, and IBM offers several networking options to merchants wanting to do business internationally.

We found IBM's scalable relational database, DB2, handled transa ctions quickly and correctly. We also found Net.Commerce, in conjunction with DB2, ensures transaction integrity--the database rolled back the effect of interrupted transactions automatically, without a programmer having to repair the database "by hand." In contrast, Microsoft's Merchant Server doesn't offer such integrity, and, in our tests, we were able to destroy the SQL Server database by emulating the sudden failure of the Merchant Server computer.

We were disappointed to find the current release of Net.Commerce does not support Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), a shortcoming IBM says it will rectify in the next version. Net.Commerce does offer connectivity via IBM's separate messaging and transaction processing (TP) monitor products, MQSeries and IBM Transaction Monitor (formerly CICS). In the la b, we used MQSeries to connect the Net.Commerce server with rudimentary software we developed to play the role of a legacy application. We also used IBM Transaction Server to create a load-balanced multiple-database-server environment (see "Web Middleware Glue Binds Web App," May 15, page 107). MQSeries provided us with an easy-to-program interapplication communications vehicle, while IBM Transaction Server let us painlessly spread the database workload across multiple servers.

Net.Commerce database tables can contain names, logos, locations, contact information, merchandise descriptions (including product number or other identifier, image, price, availability and shipping information, dimensions, weight and any other product attributes), product categories, shipping data available based on customer's location, shopper groups you define, and access privileges for customers and staff.

To help the online store manager, Net.Commerce includes browser recognition, session tracking, shopper classification an d statistics logging. We used SSL-enabled versions of the Navigator and Internet Explorer browsers in our testing and watched Net.Commerce negotiate a secure link with each.

More Than Window Shopping The online shopping experience, from a user's point of view, is similar to that presented by Microsoft's Merchant Server. Shoppers can add or remove items from a virtual shopping cart, tag individual items for shipment to different people (Christmas isn't that far away!), and optionally interrupt the shopping session, returning later to find their shopping cart intact. Net.Commerce resumes the interrupted session by specifically identifying and recognizing shopping sessions. In the final step, the customer enters credit-card information and clicks an order button. Via the SET protocol, the software verifies the credit-card information and issues a transaction to the credit-card company.

In our online store, the payment module of Net.Commer ce (a browser plug-in) automatically responded to merchant prompts and messages (that we manually supplied in our test environment), and it let us select one of several credit cards for payment. It also tracked purchases and provided reports, sorted by credit card, merchant, amount or charge status. As with Merchant Server's client-side payment module, Net.Commerce required us to use a PIN to protect each credit card (and associated digital certificate).

Net.Commerce supports the AVP TAXWARE system (a third-party product) for calculating and supplying accurate U.S. and Canadian tax rates. To test our Net.Commerce online store's ability to verify credit-card payments via SET, we monitored the software's attempts to obtain authorization via a modem. A communications program script we wrote played the role of a financial institution, returning responses to Net.Payment. In every instance (once we'd tediously managed to scaffold some dummy SET messages), the electronic commerce software behaved flawlessly.