Introduction
When most people hear ıe-commerceı they think about buying retail items on the Web. That means catalog, order-entry, workflow and electronic payment software, not to mention a wide pipe to the Internet. E-commerce, though, also can include businesses-to-business transactions, usually conducted over an extranet. This type of implementation can include buying and selling software, and EDI/EFT (Electronic Data Interchange/Electronic Funds Transfer), custom Web applications and groupware. A big consideration in both scenarios is security, but each would implement security differently.
Designing enterprise servers to cover these scenarios is not a one-size-fits-all solution; in fact itıs almost never even a single box solution. Youıll need to pay attention not only to basic hardware questions but also to network bandwidth, in-house versus out-of-house costs and the depth of applications this server will need to run.
Even with these important differences, though, there are core trends that run true across any e-commerce project. All e-commerce servers must be available to outside users over the Internet and, therefore, must reside beyond your internal network security. All commerce servers also require significant attention--customers will be relying on them to do business. That requires redundancy, fast back up and extended staff hours.
To Host or Not to Host
Network managers must remember that no matter the specific intent of an e-commerce server, its place on the network and the kinds of traffic and applications it will be required to handle will fundamentally stay the same. Granted, certain implementations will have more or less traffic connections behind the firewall as well as in front of it, but core functions tend to stay constant.
The first step in planning an e-commerce solution is to meet with the programıs initiators. Find out specifically what the management and sales staff plan to accomplish with this commerce server. Who are they trying to reach? What transactions will it need to run? How much interaction with internal staffers will be required?
For storefront e-commerce sites, an important consideration is whether to run the server in-house or host it with a third party. You donıt need to reach a final decision on this right away, but there should be a group tasked with researching the specifics of this possibility from the beginning. Some enterprise-class e-commerce sites are run via outside hosting services. The reasons are simple, especially for online stores.
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