1. Electronic Commerce Last Week Internet utility programs
Finger, Ping, Tracert
Web Client-Server Architecture
Two-tier and three-tier architecture
Communication protocols in client-server architecture
HTTP protocol
Common Gateway Interface (CGI)
Application Programming Interface (API)
Database Gateways (ODBC, IDC, ADO)
Markup languages
SGML, HTML, XML
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2. Electronic Commerce This Week Web-Based Tools for Electronic Commerce
Basic Requirements of a Web server
Setting Up a Web Server
Benchmarking Web Server Hardware and Software
Web Server Software Feature Sets
Core capabilities
Site management
Application Development
Electronic commerce
Web Server Software and Tools
Apache HTTP Server
Microsoft Internet Information Server
Netscape Enterprise Server, and
O’Reilly WebSite Professional
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3. Basic Requirements of a Web server
The basic requirement for a merchant to have a Web presence or have an electronic commerce site, is
(i) a connection to the Internet
(ii) a Web server in the company network
The Internet connection is provided by an ISP through a leased line
The two main ingredients in a Web server are
its hardware
its software
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4. Web Server Hardware
Selecting a computer to serve as a Web server depends on several factors, such as:
Operating system of the network
Unix operating system is found to be more rugged than Windows, but Unix is more complex to manage than Windows
Hardware requirement of the Web server software
A PC with a midrange CPU, small hard drive, and 32 megabytes of memory will perform poorly when compared with a high-end workstation or a powerful UNIX-based computer.
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5. Web Server Hardware (Contd..)
Expected traffic or the number of transaction per unit time
Running a large, enterprise-class application server (such as an ERP system) on a personal computer is not feasible.
Other software running on the same computer
For example, running a Web server and a database server can significantly slow down the performance of a computer.
Scalability of the hardware
Means upgrade of components such memory, disk space, disk mirroring, or even connect additional Web servers if necessary.
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6. Setting Up a Web Server
One can build a small Web server with an inexpensive PC (costing about $1,500) running on Windows 98 or NT
Although, it is a good idea to start with a server-type computer offered by several leading PC manufacturers that costs about $3000
A merchant may consider some benchmarking results of hardware and software combination before purchasing or leasing a web server
Electronic Commerce

7. Benchmarking Web Server Hardware and Software
Introduction
Benchmarking a Web server is testing used to compare performance of hardware and software offered by various vendors
The results of benchmark tests demonstrate that there are measurable differences in various Web server performance
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8. Benchmark Test A benchmark test considers several factors such as:
The computer hardware
The Web server software
Network connection
A Web server on a T3 connection can deliver Web pages to clients much faster than it could on a T1 connection.
Throughput
It is the number of HTTP requests that a particular hardware and software combination can process in a unit of time.
Response Time
It is the amount of time that a server requires to process one request.
Type of Web page
static versus dynamic
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9. Benchmarking Software
WebStone is a popular benchmarking software that measures performance on various types of Web pages (static and dynamic) such as:
HTML: This is the standard static Web page containing only HTML tags.
CGI: Common Gateway Interface or CGI protocol causes the Web server to run another program and return the result to the Web server.
API: Application Programming Interface or API is a set of protocols that uses “multithreading” to handle user requests of the dynamic Web pages.
API is more efficient than CGI, as CGI requires an individual program to be brought to the Web server memory when requested by multiple users.
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10. Web Server Software Features
All Web server software provide some basic features which can be classified as:
Core capabilities
Site management
Application Construction, and
Electronic commerce
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11. Web Server Software Features
Core Capabilities
Client Request Processing: A Web server processes client requests that are sent using HTTP protocol, both for static and dynamic pages
IP-Sharing or Virtual Server: A Web server can work as many virtual Web servers, serving many businesses with individual domain names but all domains directing to the same IP address of the computer
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12. Web Server Software Features
Core Capabilities (contd..)
Logical File: A Web server can have a logical file name corresponding to a physical file
The physical file may be in the same computer or in another computer, and also the logical name and the physical name do not have to be same
The Web server translates a logical URL into a physical file address
Example, the physical file “c:\Inetpub\wwwroot\default.htm” may be configured as logical URL:
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13. Web Server Software Features
Core Capabilities (contd..)
Security: Web servers are located publicly on the Internet or privately in an organizational intranet, usually behind the firewalls.
The public documents are configured to be viewed by anonymous users
For extranet users, the files and folders are configured for validation of username and password. Access controls provide or deny access to files based on the username or by extranet company URL
Web servers allow processing digital certificates and private/public key pairs.
Web servers also support Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
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14. Web Server Software Features
Core Capabilities (contd..)
FTP: Web servers provide File Transfer Protocol (FTP) services. Thus users can transfer files to and from the server.
Searching: Search engines and indexing programs are standard components of the Web server.
Search engines or search tools search either the existing site or the entire Web.
Site Analysis: Web servers can capture visitor information that are stored in a log file. Information includes:
who is visiting the Web site (the visitor’s URL)
how long the visitor browsed the site
the date and time of each visit, and the pages visited
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15. Web Server Software Features
Site Management
A Web server provides tools to manage multiple Web sites, file security, virtual file, and log file analysis
Administration of a Web server can be performed from a remote computer in the network
Administrators can grant or deny Web access to individual computers, groups of computers, or entire domains
Administrators can stop and restart all Web services without stopping and restarting the computer
Site management also include authoring tools such as Microsoft Front page 2000
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16. Web Server Software Features
Application Development
Application development includes Web editors and extensions to produce Web pages – either static or dynamic. These include HTML editors such as FrontPage for static Web pages
For dynamic Web pages, there are protocols such as Common Gateway Interface (CGI), Application programming Interface (API), and Active Server Pages (ASP) that are used by programs such as Java, C++, and VBScriot to develop dynamic Web pages
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17. Web Server Software Features
Application Development (Contd..)
Active Server Pages (ASP):
Developed by Microsoft, it is a server-side scripting technology to build dynamic Web applications.
With ASP, one can build Web pages with embedded query strings for database manipulation using scripting languages such as VBScript and JavaScript.
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18. Web Server Software Features
Application Development (Contd..)
Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) and ActiveX Data Object (ADO) mechanisms, both developed by Microsoft, can be used to develop dynamic Web pages that use database connection of variety of databases from different manufactures (such as SQL Server, DB2, and Oracle)
Reference:
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19. Web Server Software Features
Application Development (Contd..)
Java Database Connectivity (JDBC):
Similar to ODBC, JDBC is another technology developed by Sun Microsystems, that is used for Web-database applications,
It is written in Java
It runs on Unix Web servers
Reference:
Electronic Commerce

20. Web Server Software Features
Electronic Commerce
Some Web servers provide advanced services that support online selling and buying (such as shopping cart and catalog services)
An electronic commerce software can also provide templates and other tools to quickly develop an e-commerce site. This might include templates for product browsing, shopping carts, and credit card processing.
Electronic Commerce

21. Web Server Software Features
Electronic Commerce (contd..)
An electronic commerce software is a separate software that integrates with an existing Web server.
Microsoft Commerce Server is an electronic commerce software that enables businesses to engage customers, transact business, and analyze commerce Web sites more effectively.
Ref:
Electronic Commerce

22. Discussion Questions Name few companies that make Web servers
At minimum what software are needed to run a Web server
What does it mean by static Web page?
What is a dynamic Web page?
What technologies are used to create a dynamic Web page?
What is ODBC?
What is API?
What is ADO?
What CGI?
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