IBM WebSphere Commerce

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IBM WebSphere Commerce is the industry leading next-generation e-commerce software solution. It is the single, unified platform which offers the ability to do business directly with consumers (B2C), with businesses (B2B), and indirectly through channel partners (indirect business model), or all of this simultaneously. WebSphere Commerce is Java language written software, running on the Java - Java EE - platform and is using open standards, such as XML, and Web services. It is proprietary IBM's software product, within the WebSphere middleware brand.

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[edit] Versions

It all started back in 1996, with the product called Net.Commerce, starting with versions V1.0, V2.0, V3.1, and V3.2. In 2001 the Net.Commerce product was renamed to WebSphere Commerce, releasing versions V4.1, V5.1, V5.4, and V5.5.

See history in Looking back

The last three versions since 2004 are described in detail in their respective InfoCenters:

There are three flavours of WebSphere Commerce:

Each WebSphere Commerce runtime environment is matched with it's own development environment:

[edit] Platforms

There are many operating systems on which WebSphere Commerce can run (i.e. AIX, OS/400, Solaris, Windows, Red Hat Linux, SuSE Linux - Linux on xSeries, pSeries, iSeries, and zLinux). Different web servers can be used (i.e. IBM HTTP Server, Internet Information Services, Sun Web Server), and various databases (i.e. DB2, Oracle, and Cloudscape based on Apache Derby - for development environment only). The supported application server platform is WebSphere Application Server. The recommended tool for developing WebSphere Commerce sites is Rational Application Developer.

Pages detailing prerequisites, supported operating systems, databases and servers per each release:

[edit] Features and benefits

New in V6 Enhancements:

  • Enhanced Search & Navigation through improved integration with WebSphere Content Discovery (note: complementary product) for easier search-based merchandising and natural language search.
  • Enhanced Web Analytics with auto-tagging and custom Coremetrics reports for promotions and campaigns, B2B transactions, Sales Center, Gift Center and A/B Testing.
  • SOA Enhancements such as packaged Web Services for integration to external order management and ERP systems and the ability to model WebSphere Commerce processes in BPEL.
  • Web Content Management through integration with IBM Workplace Web Content Management for improved handling of structured and unstructured content (for example how-to guides, news articles).

All V6 versions (Express, Professional and Enterprise) of IBM WebSphere Commerce Family include the following features, and additional features:

  • Quick and easy installation
  • Complete solution
  • Streamlined Starter Stores
  • Multi-cultural support
  • Advanced Order Management
  • Marketing and Merchandising using Marketing and Merchandising Tools
  • Analytics and business intelligence using Coreometrics Cross-Channel Analytics or WebSphere Commerce Analyzer (WCA)
  • Operational reports
  • Customer care
  • Payments using WebSphere Commerce Payments or Payments plug-in
  • Powerful integration capabilities
  • Catalog import utility
  • Easy to use tools (Web-based framework called WebSphere Commerce Accelerator)
    • Product Management Tools
      Store Style Editor
      Change Page Text Editor
  • Fast-path documentation
  • Open standards support - Built on accepted, industry standards like Java technology, JavaServer Pages, Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB) and XML, WebSphere Commerce can be easily integrated to your existing, in-house developed middleware and systems including IBM CICS, IBM WebSphere MQ, IBM IMS products and SAP R/3.
  • Broad platform support
  • Developer tools, standards-based, rapid application development environment that uses and extends the award-winning WebSphere integrated team-development environment.

The V6 Professional and Enterprise versions include also the following features and additional features:

The V6 Enterprise version includes also the following features:

WebSphere Commerce Developer V6 includes:

  • Development database (A Cloudscape database) that is pre-configured to work with WebSphere Commerce and has all of the starter store archives pre-published. Also supports DB2 and Oracle as the development database.
  • Rational Application Developer providing an open, comprehensive development environment for building dynamic e-business applications and Web services specifically for WebSphere Commerce:
    • Roles based development
    • WSDL design
    • Schema design
    • Service skeleton and proxy generation
    • Interactive Service Explorer
    • UDDI search and publish capability
    • Local and remote WebSphere unit test
    • Test case generation
    • WS-I conformance testing
  • WebSphere Application Server V6.0 providing a premier J2EE and Web services application platform to help build, run, integrate and manage dynamic business applications.
  • Tools and plug-ins:
    • Enterprise bean conversion tool
    • JSP batch compiler
    • WebSphere Commerce JSP viewer
    • Optimistic Locking plug-in validating that CMP entity beans can use optimistic locking and migrating EJB projects to use optimistic locking
  • Starter Stores facilitating quick and easy online store modification to include those WebSphere Commerce features they want to present to their customers.
  • Enhanced store configuration services allowing Line-of-Business users to more quickly and easily modify the online store to include those WebSphere Commerce features they want to present to their customers with no IT involvement required.
  • Store Creation Wizard provides for easy creation of hosted stores. Key Capabilities include:
    • Store Profile
    • Styles
    • Store Files Mgmt
    • Store Text
    • Store Logo
  • Extensive online help for application developers with API and command reference information, fully integrated into the development environment.

[edit] V6 Enhancements

The first business value pack (also called BVA1, BVA - Business Value Assesment) for WebSphere Commerce V6 has just been released to the general public. This includes enhancements to the WebSphere Commerce product including reference applications:

Announcement page:

InfoCenter V6:

Training on WebSphere Commerce 6.0 Enhancements on IBM PartnerWorld:

Download page:

[edit] Solutions

[edit] External links

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