ELECTRONIC COMMERCE SOFTWARE
III. ADVANCED FUNCTIONS OF ELECTRONIC COMMERCE SOFTWARE: Larger companies usually establish the connections between their electronic commerce software and their existing accounting system by using a type of software called middleware. Some large companies that have sufficient IT staff write their own middleware; however, most companies purchase middleware that is customized for their businesses by the middleware vendor or a consulting firm. Thus, most of the cost of middleware is not the software itself, but the consulting fees needed to make the software work in a given company. Making a company’s information systems work together is called interoperability and is an important goal of companies when they install middleware.
A. Enterprise Application Integration and Databases: A program that performs specific function, such as creating invoices, calculating payroll, or processing payments received from customers, is called an application program, application software or, more simply, an application. An application server is a computer that takes the request messages received by the Web server and runs application programs that perform some kind of action based on the contents of the request messages. The actions that the application server software performs are determined by the rules used in the business. These rules are called business logic. An example of a business rule is: When a customer logs in, check the password entered against the password file in the database.
Application servers are usually grouped into two types: page-based and component-based systems. Page-based application systems return pages generated by scripts that include the rules for presenting data on the Web page with the business logic. Larger businesses often prefer to use a component-based application system that separates the presentation logic from the business logic. Each component of logic is created in its own module.
B. Web Services: Companies are beginning to extend the idea of application server systems so that these programs can communicate across organizational boundaries. Although a generally accepted definition has not yet evolved, many IT professionals define Web services as a combination of software tools that let application software in one organization communicate with other applications over a network by using a specific set of standard protocols known by their acronyms: SOAP, UDDI, and WSDL (these protocols are described below). Another definition of Web services that IT professionals use is: a self-contained, modular unit of application logic that provides some business functionality to other applications through an Internet connection.C. Integration with ERP Systems: Many B2B Web sites must be able to connect to existing information systems such as enterprise resource planning software. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software packages are business systems that integrate all facets of a business, including accounting, logistics, manufacturing, marketing, planning, project management, and treasury functions. The major ERP vendors include Baan, Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP. A typical installation of ERP software costs between $2 million and $25 million; thus, companies that are already running these systems have made a significant investment in them and expect their electronic commerce sites to integrate with them.