Chapter 3
Web-based Tools for Electronic
Commerce
1
Types of Web sites
• Development sites
• Intranets
• B2B and B2C Commerce sites
• Content delivery sites
2
Web Server Considerations
• The company must decide whether to run
servers in-house or through third party Web
and e-commerce providers.
• Scalability of e-commerce.
• Contact Web Host Guild (WHG) for help.
• Bandwidth of the Web site.
• Consider a local third-party ISP.
3
Web Platform Choices
• A fast server is better than a slower one.
• Internal and external traffic to occur on the
server.
• Scalability of the server hardware.
• Hardware decisions go hand in hand with
operating system and application server
software choices.
4
Building a Scalable E-commerce
Systems
• Three layers in E-commerce systems:
– Web server layer
– Middle-tier layer
– Backend layer
• An application server is a middle-tier software and
hardware combination that lies between the
Internet and a corporate backend server.
5
Web Server Performance
Evaluation
• Benchmarking is testing used to compare the
performance of hardware and software.
• Hardware and operating systems are key areas for
benchmarking.
• The speed of its connection can affect a Web
server’s performance.
• Throughput and response time can measure a
server’s Web page delivery capability.
6
Web Server Software Feature
• Web servers are located on the Internet or
intranets, usually behind firewalls.
• The duties and features of Web servers
differ depending on whether they are
publicly accessible.
• Web server software program feature
depends on the software package being
used.
7
Essential Capabilities of Web
Server Program
• Security
• FTP
• Searching
• Data analysis
8
Web Site Management
• FrontPage has some site management
capabilities.
• HomeSite is a site management tool that
validates graphics, computes page-
download times for modem connection,
validates links, and validates HTML codes.
9
Web Application Construction
• Application construction uses Web editors
and extensions to produce Web pages.
• Some Web development systems provide
simple tools to create Web pages.
10
Dynamic Content
• Dynamic content is nonstatic information
constructed in response to a Web client’s
request.
• Active Server Pages (ASP) is a server-side
scripting mechanism to build dynamic sites
and Web applications.
11
Web Site Development
• Site development tools comprise features such as:
– An HTML/visual Web page editor
– Software development kits
– Web page upload support
• Some examples of web-site development tools are
FrontPage, Dreamweaver, Cold Fusion, PageMill,
HoTMetaL Pro, and Netscape Composer.
12
Electronic Commerce
• An electronic commerce server deals with
buying and selling goods and services.
• A Web server should support electronic
commerce software.
• The best electronic commerce software will
generate sales reports on demand, allowing
store managers to see updated sales
information.
13
Web Server Software
• Two distinct Web servers in the market:
intranet servers and public Web servers.
• Some popular Web server programs are:
– Apache HTTP Server
– Microsoft Internet Information Server
14
Apache HTTP Server
• Apache HTTP Server is free and performs very
efficiently.
• Apache runs on many operating systems and the
hardware that supports them.
• Apache has a built-in search engine and HTML
authoring tools and supports FTP.
15
Microsoft Internet Information
Server (IIS)
• IIS comes bundled with Microsoft’s
Windows NT Server and 2000 Server
operating systems.
• IIS includes an integrated search engine.
• IIS combines HTML pages, ActiveX
components, and scripts to produce
dynamic pages.
16
Other Web Server Tools
There are other tools that are part of Web
servers:
• Portals
• Search engines
• Intelligent agents
17
Web Portals
• A Web portal is a “cyber door” on the Web.
• A portal serves as a customizable home
base from which users do their searching,
navigating, and other activity.
• The portal loads automatically when it
launches the Web browser.
18
Customer Portals
• Examples of portals include: [Link],
Excite, and Yahoo!
• Most portals include: e-mail, links to search
engines, links to membership services;
news, sports, and business headlines and
articles; links to chat rooms, links to virtual
shopping malls, and Web directories.
19
Business Portals
• Most business portals can be accessed only
by member enterprises.
• Business portals specialize in business
commodities and materials such as steel,
gasoline, or chemicals.
• Example of business portals are [Link],
e-STEEL, FoodUSA, [Link], etc.
20
Search Engines
• A search engine is a special kind of Web
page software that finds other Web pages
that match a word or phrase you entered.
• A Web directory is a listing of hyperlinks to
Web pages that is organized into
hierarchical categories.
• Search engines contain three major parts:
spider, index, and utility.
21
Intelligent Agents
• An intelligent agent is a program that
performs functions such as information
gathering, information filtering, or
mediation running, in the background on
behalf of a person or entity.
• Examples of agent systems include
AuctionBot, BargainFinder and Firefly
22