commerce server

Web software that runs some of the main functions of an online storefront such as product
display, online ordering, and inventory management. The software works in conjunction with
online payment systems to process payments.

Definition - What does Commerce Server mean?

A commerce server is a server that provides the basic components and functions of an online
storefront, such as a shopping cart, credit card processing and product displays. Commerce
servers also manage and maintain accounting and inventory data, also called back-end data.

A commerce server is a product intended for e-commerce websites or e-commerce

applications.

Techopedia explains Commerce Server

Microsoft is one of the providers of commerce servers. Microsoft Commerce Server was first
released in 2000 and was used to creatie e-commerce systems. It uses Microsoft's .NET
technology. The latest release was in January 2009 and includes a comprehensive solution for
many business scenarios. The main features of Microsoft Commerce Server include:

Multichannel functionality

Service-oriented architecture

A default site with 30 Web parts and controls

What-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) editing

Catalog, order and inventory management

Management of ads and set rules for ads

Profile management

Data integration with third party systems

64-bit support

Aside from Microsoft, there are many other software and service companies that provide
commerce server products and services as well as the training to use them.

commerce server
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AAA Server that also provides the main functions of an online storefront (such as
product displays, shopping cart, credit card acceptance), and manages and
maintains backend data (such as data relating to accounting and inventory
management).

What is COMMERCE SERVER?

A server that is associated with AAA that is also an online store. It also handles back end data
like inventory.

Microsoft Commerce Server is a Microsoft product(a framework (collection of e-

commerce specific APIs) for building e-commerce systems using Microsoft .NET
technology.

Benefits of Microsoft commerce

server
Microsoft Commerce Server (CS) is a framework (collection of e-commerce specific APIs) to
build an e-commerce site around. CS is scalable, and runs on top of Windows Server and
SQL Server. Additional Commerce Servers can be added to the cluster if needed. In addition,
CS provides business tools in the flavour of Microsoft office - this allows business users to
modify orders, user profiles, advertisements, discounts remotely.

The other .NET solutions are turn-key e-commerce solutions that essentially require re-
branding.

Microsoft Commerce Server is a complete and extensible platform that powers

multi-channel e-commerce solutions for high-performance organizations, in any
environment and scale, while offering faster and lower cost e-commerce Web site
design and deployments.

Commerce Server 2007 provides a set of tools for the Web site developer, the IT
professional, and the business user to help develop, deploy, and manage e-
commerce applications. This section gives you a roadmap to help you start to
use Commerce Server based on your role. It also gives you pointers to the
appropriate tasks to help you get started.

Commerce Server Architecture

Commerce Server 2007
The following figure shows the architecture of Commerce Server 2007. The numbers in the
figure correspond to brief explanations of the various components of the architecture that
follows the figure.
1. Customers use their browser to access a Commerce Server Web application. Such
Web applications typically involve purchasing or otherwise ordering products that are
browsed online, added to a basket, and ultimately acquired by completing the check-
out process.

2. Business users use the various smart client applications provided with Commerce
Server to manage the data maintained within the various Commerce Server systems.
For example, one or more business users might be tasked with maintaining the
product catalog(s) for the Commerce Server Web application by using the Catalog
Manager and the Catalog and Inventory Schema Manager. Meanwhile, one or more
other business users might be tasked with using the Marketing Manager to schedule
ad rotation within the Web application. Another major category of Web application
tasks that is handled by business users involves the management of the orders that are
placed and the customers who place them. These business users use the Customer and
Orders Manager application to perform the various tasks in this category.

3. At the core of Commerce Server are the various Commerce Server systems, each of
which has an extensive .NET API that you can use to access the functionality that they
provide. Each of these systems has its own section within this documentation set that
provides both conceptual information and step-by-step instructions for performing
common programming tasks:

o Developing with the Catalog System

o Developing with the Inventory System

o Developing with the Marketing System

o Developing with the Orders System

o Developing with the Profiles System

Each of these Commerce Server systems provides a corresponding Web service so

that its functionality can be accessed over the network. Additionally, they each
support what is known as an agent API. Agent APIs use the corresponding Web
service to create an easier-to-use, remote API that, other than how it is initialized,
provides the same set of methods and properties that are available using the local
.NET APIs.

The Web applications that were discussed earlier in point 1 are generally built on top
of the local .NET APIs provided by the various Commerce Server systems. The Web
applications use the local .NET APIs to achieve the best possible performance, and are
therefore confined to run on the same computer, or set of computers, upon which
Commerce Server and its systems are installed.
 Both ASP.NET 2.0 and Internet Information Services (IIS) provide the platform upon
which Commerce Server and its systems are designed to operate.

4. You can use Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 to integrate Commerce Server Together
With a wide variety of line-of-business (LOB) applications. Examples of such LOB
applications include enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship
management (CRM) applications. Commerce Server includes BizTalk adapters for the
Orders, Catalog, Inventory, and Profiles Systems that generate and consume a
standard set of BizTalk messages that can be used to export and import their different
types of business data. You can use BizTalk Server to act as an intermediary between
Commerce Server and the relevant LOB applications, perhaps processing and
definitely routing the messages being exchanged. For more information, see
Developing with the BizTalk Adapters.

5. The IT professionals who are tasked with the day-to-day operations of a Commerce
Server Web application can use Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 to monitor both
events that are logged by various Commerce Server systems and to track performance
using the counters maintained by those systems.

6. Commerce Server systems, such as the Profiles System and the Orders System,
maintain performance counters and log events during operation. Microsoft Operations
Manager 2005 is one of the recommended ways in which this kind of information can
be monitored and acted upon to maintain Web application performance.

7. Another set of operational tasks are performed by IT professionals using the

Commerce Server Manager, which is a Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-
in. Commerce Server Manager is used to maintain a wide variety of Commerce Server
configuration information.

8. Commerce Server Staging (CSS) is used by IT professionals to manage the

deployment of various Commerce Server resources, and related resources, between
different system environments. These resources include database information from
SQL Server, metabase information from Internet Information Services (IIS), in
addition to the various files that make up the Commerce Server Web applications. For
more information about CSS, see Commerce Server Staging.

9. Another important feature of Commerce Server is known as the Data Warehouse and
Analytics. This feature consists of a set of Data Transformation Services (DTS) tasks
within Commerce Server combined with several powerful features that are part of
Microsoft SQL Server. The SQL Server features include the set of database tables that
are the Data Warehouse, OLAP cubes, and various reports built by using SQL
Reporting Services. You can run the Commerce Server DTS tasks to export various
types of operational data from Commerce Server into the Data Warehouse within SQL
Server. When this data resides within the Data Warehouse, many types of
sophisticated analysis can be performed and reported upon.

10. Commerce Server uses SQL Server in several different capacities. As previously
mentioned, much of the functionality of the Data Warehouse and Analytics feature of
Commerce Server is actually provided by SQL Server. The Commerce Server
 Administration database is also a SQL Server database, as are the various databases
maintained to store the data associated with the different Commerce Server systems.

Functional Components of Microsoft

commerce server 2007
1:- Order & inventory
2:-Catalog
3:-marketing
4:- Profile
other component