The Essential .

NET Server for Smart Online Business

Commerce Server 2002 Technical

Overview
Updated March 2003
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Contents
Introduction........................................................................................................................................ 1
Editions of Commerce Server 2002...................................................................................................1
Evaluation Edition......................................................................................................................................1
Developer Edition.......................................................................................................................................2
Standard Edition.........................................................................................................................................2
Enterprise Edition.......................................................................................................................................3
Upgrade Paths.............................................................................................................................................3

Software Compatibility....................................................................................................................... 4
Architectural Overview.......................................................................................................................4
Key Features in Commerce Server 2002...........................................................................................5
Scenarios for International Sites........................................................................................................6
Functionality and Features................................................................................................................ 6
Setup and Deployment................................................................................................................................6
Key Features in Commerce Server 2002..............................................................................................7
Commerce Server .NET Application Framework......................................................................................8
Commerce Server Application Runtime...............................................................................................8
Commerce Server Base Class Library..................................................................................................8
Common Language Runtime Interoperability Layer............................................................................8
Developer Portal...................................................................................................................................9
International Retail Site: A .NET-Based Sample Site..........................................................................9
Product Catalog System............................................................................................................................10
Key Features in Commerce Server 2002............................................................................................10
Profiling System.......................................................................................................................................12
Key Features in Commerce Server 2002............................................................................................12
Targeting System......................................................................................................................................14
Key Features in Commerce Server 2002............................................................................................14
Business Processing Pipelines System.....................................................................................................14
Key Features in Commerce Server 2002............................................................................................15
Business Analytics System.......................................................................................................................15
Business Data Warehouse...................................................................................................................15
Key Features in Commerce Server 2002............................................................................................16
Predictor..............................................................................................................................................17
Key Features in Commerce Server 2002............................................................................................17
Analysis Reporting.............................................................................................................................17
Business Desk...........................................................................................................................................18
Key Features in Commerce Server 2002............................................................................................18

Summary......................................................................................................................................... 19
Introduction
Microsoft® Commerce Server 2002 is the .NET Enterprise Servers platform for rapidly building next-
generation online businesses.
Commerce Server 2002 is built on agile Microsoft .NET technology that enables you to extend your site
functionality, drive profitability, and enhance the customer experience globally. Commerce Server provides
powerful features for user profiling, personalization, catalog management, order processing, globalization
(multiple languages and currencies), and advanced online business analytics.
Commerce Server 2002 is the successor to Commerce Server 2000. Commerce Server 2000 is designed for
building middle to large commerce sites and for use by organizations with a single-language focus.
Commerce Server 2002 builds on this functionality for the international marketplace, and provides multiple
editions, including:
 Enterprise Edition. Designed for large international corporations that may have multiple language and
multiple currency scenarios, potentially challenging high availability requirements, or the requirement
to build feature-rich Web sites using the latest Microsoft technologies.
 Standard Edition. Priced and sized appropriately for the middle market. Standard Edition is intended
for use in creating high-value, lower-volume business-to-business sites.
All editions of Commerce Server 2002 offer developers the choice of using traditional languages and tools,
such as Active Server Pages (ASP), Microsoft Visual Basic® Scripting Edition (VBScript), and the
Component Object Model (COM), as well as the compelling newer Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET
development environment that includes Microsoft Visual C#™, Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, and more.
By providing a Commerce Server application runtime as an extension of the Microsoft ASP.NET core
runtime services, the developer experience for building applications from within the Visual Studio .NET
environment is consistent and well-integrated.
This document contains:
 An introduction to the editions of Commerce Server 2002
 Software compatibility
 Architectural overview
 Key features in Commerce Server 2002
 Scenarios for international sites
 Functionality and features of Commerce Server 2002

Editions of Commerce Server 2002

In an effort to better match the product to the requirements of customers in the various roles and
environments, Commerce Server 2002 is available in four editions: Evaluation Edition, Developer Edition,
Standard Edition, and Enterprise Edition. All editions are available in English, French, German, and
Japanese. All Commerce Server editions work with Developer, Standard, or Enterprise Editions of
Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000.
All Commerce Server editions work with Developer, Standard, or Enterprise Editions of SQL Server™
2000.

Evaluation Edition

Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview 1

 The Evaluation Edition is available for evaluation purposes and is limited to a 120-day period. This edition
should not be deployed in a production environment. A production deployment of the Evaluation Edition is
not supported.
The evaluation edition has all the features of the Enterprise Edition of the released product. To obtain the
Evaluation Edition, see http://www.microsoft.com/commerceserver.
A direct, setup-enabled upgrade from Evaluation Edition to the Enterprise Edition allows planning and
development work to be used in a production environment without extensive code changes. Upgrading
from Evaluation Edition to the Standard Edition is a smooth and relatively easy procedure for code
customizations you might have implemented, database schema changes, and other modifications.

Developer Edition
Developer Edition is designed for developers or consulting partners to write customized code and perform
simple unit testing on a server. It is not intended for use with multiple servers designated for formal
integration, performance testing, or staging environments.
Developer Edition is available to developers through Microsoft MSDN® Universal subscription or as a
stand-alone product.
The Developer Edition license covers installation on two computers: one is used for development which
contains development tools and source code, and the other is used as a development Web server. The Web
server is separate so that Internet Information Services (IIS) remains unaffected by other tools used during
development.
You cannot upgrade Developer Edition to Standard Edition or Enterprise Edition; however, you can easily
migrate work from the development environment to the production environment using Commerce Server
2002 tools.
The following illustration shows the limitations of the Developer Edition of Commerce Server 2002.

Standard Edition
Standard Edition is designed for the mid-market organization using a per processor license. Web sites built
with a limited purpose or scope can use the more sophisticated features within Commerce Server 2002,
such as catalog management, campaign management, personalization, and limited business analytics
advantageously without incurring additional costs.
Standard Edition licensing permits the implementation of two applications per site and two Web servers per
application. The number of sites is not limited. The capacity of users depends upon your hardware and site

2 Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview

configuration. Your network connection should have a high bandwidth in order to maximize the
performance of Business Desk.
Standard Edition can be upgraded to Enterprise Edition.

The following illustration shows the limitations of the Standard Edition of Commerce Server 2002.

Enterprise Edition
Enterprise Edition is intended for those organizations that need to scale up or to scale out beyond the
Standard Edition limits, or those that require the advanced features of business analytics available only to
Enterprise Edition customers. Licensing of Enterprise Edition is based on the per-processor model.
The advanced features in business analytics of Enterprise Edition include reporting beyond the boundaries
of product sales and Web usage, advanced data mining and prediction, cube partitioning and parallel
processing, and extensibility of the reporting and cube features.
Enterprise Edition licensing permits the implementation of an unlimited number of applications and an
unlimited number of sites. You can also use an unlimited number of CPUs depending on your operating
system requirements.
The following illustration shows an overview of how the Enterprise Edition of Commerce Server 2002 can
be configured.

Upgrade Paths
Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview 3
 The following table lists the editions of Commerce Server and the supported upgrade paths.
Upgrade from To
Commerce Server 2002 Evaluation Edition Commerce Server 2002 Enterprise Edition
Commerce Server 2002 Standard Edition Commerce Server 2002 Enterprise Edition
Commerce Server 2000 Any edition of Commerce Server 2002
Site Server 3.0 Any edition of Commerce Server 2002

For upgrade instructions, see “Upgrading from a Previous Version of Commerce Server” at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=5591.

Software Compatibility
Commerce Server 2002 is compatible with the following Microsoft technologies:
 Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
 Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
 Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
 Microsoft Active Directory
 Microsoft Visual Studio .NET
 Microsoft SQL Server 2000
 Microsoft BizTalk® Server 2000 or later
 Microsoft Application Center 2000 or later
 Microsoft Content Management Server 2001 or later
 Microsoft Office XP
 Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server (ISA)
 Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 or later.
The Commerce Server Solution Sites, which provide a starting point for developing your own sites, are
tested using Internet Explorer 5.5 or later. A verification pass has been run using Netscape 6.
Note Only the Administration Tools and Documentation can be installed on Windows XP.
Note Individual browser support is determined by the particular implementation of the Commerce Server
application. Commerce Server 2002 has no control over the rendering of data in a browser-specific or
independent environment because it is a middle-ware technology.

Architectural Overview
Commerce Server is comprised of five major systems:
 Business Analytics System
 Profiling System
 Product Catalog System
 Targeting System

4 Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview

  Business Processing Pipelines System
System administrators use Commerce Server Manager, an MMC snap-in, to manage these systems.
Business managers use Business Desk to manage their Web site.
The following figure provides an overview of the Commerce Server systems wrapped in the Solution Sites,
together with Business Desk, Commerce Server Manager, and the Commerce Server databases.

Key Features in Commerce Server 2002

Commerce Server 2002 provides the following key features.
 The ability to scale up to support the largest Internet commerce sites
 Improved operations and manageability out of the box
 Feature and performance improvements for site availability
 The ability to manage product data (for example, catalogs and shipping methods) centrally in multiple
languages without having to create separate data sources per language
 Create an advertising campaign in a single language, or target users with campaigns in multiple
languages
 The ability to manage user, product, and targeting data in a single data source that supports multiple
sites
 Create single site with multiple languages and currencies where transactions occur in only one currency
or create multiple sites with a single language and transaction currency

Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview 5

 Note To perform transactions in multiple currencies within a single site, you must develop pipeline
components for each currency. These additional pipeline components are not provided in Commerce Server
2002.

Scenarios for International Sites

Commerce Server 2002 supports multilingual and multicurrency implementations.
International organizations run Web sites that display content in two or more languages, and they may price
products in multiple currencies. Following are the key multilingual and multicurrency scenarios that
Commerce Server 2002 features support:
 The organization has products offered in two or more languages.
 The organization has products offered in two or more languages, but not all products are available to all
locales. For example, a product may be sold in Canada, France, and Japan, but not in the United States.
 The organization has products offered in two or more languages and transacts business in two or more
currencies.
 The organization has products offered in two or more languages and creates advertising campaigns that
are targeted to more than one locale.

Functionality and Features

This section introduces the functionality and features provided by Commerce Server 2002 in the following
areas.
Setup and Deployment
Commerce Server .NET Application Framework
Product Catalog System
Profiling System
Targeting System
Business Processing Pipelines System
Business Analytics System
Business Desk

Setup and Deployment

Commerce Server includes features that enable you to run a highly available enterprise site. Commerce
Server provides resiliency from errors of the underlying platform and single points of failure.
The assumed scenarios in a Commerce Server 2002 deployment include a stand-alone business Analytics
installation, a new installation of Commerce Server 2002, and an upgrade from Commerce Server 2000 to
Commerce Server 2002.
For the installation instructions, see the “Commerce Server 2002 Installation Guide” available at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=6125.

6 Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview

Key Features in Commerce Server 2002
 Microsoft Windows NT® Authentication for data store connections. This facilitates the use of
native Windows security objects and audit logging.
 Default locale. It is recommended, but not required, that you set the system locale to the default locale
(or admin locale) of the main administration site.
 Business Analytics only installation option. This option installs the Data Warehouse, Analysis, and
Predictor resources, and it unpacks the Business Desk application.
 Password Management. Commerce Server 2002 provides support for changing passwords
simultaneously requires Windows accounts for services and COM+ application identities. SQL Server
logins are required for resources.
The services and COM+ applications consist of the List Manager service, Direct Mailer, the Predictor
resource, and Event Logging (a COM+ application). Site level resources with SQL Server credentials
are Transactions, Transaction Configuration, Product Catalog, Campaigns, Global Resources for Direct
Mailer, Data Warehouse, and Profiles. Commerce Server 2002 changes all passwords simultaneously.
Since the site may be using global resources that have SQL Server credentials, the administrator can
select a check box that specifies whether to make the same credential changes to the global resources
used by the selected site.
 Manage large number of sites. Manage a large number of sites by making each site resource more
identifiable with site specific reference information.
 Microsoft Management Console (MMC) task pads. Use MMC task pads to provide task-based
screens to expose the functionality of Commerce Server Manager.
 Support for Windows clustering and Network Load Balancing. These configurations have been
tested extensively with Commerce Server 2002. All Commerce Server 2002 high availability
requirements are driven by the Windows 2000 Advanced Server High Availability certification
specifications.
Commerce Server 2002 supports:
 Node support for installation on clustered servers. Direct Mailer and Predictor are Windows
Clustering cluster-aware. Cluster awareness requires that Commerce Server 2002 be able to install
on any node event if the disks where your application is stored are not physically located on that
node.
 Enhanced failover for runtime components of NT dependent services. Predictor and Direct
Mailer can install on 2 nodes on Windows 2000 Advanced Server, and on 2, 3, and 4 nodes on
Windows 2000 Datacenter Server.
Failover requires that applications or runtime components that maintain a long running connection
to dependent Windows NT services, application server, or underlying data stores must gracefully
handle both cluster node failures and application failures by attempting to retry the connection.
 Windows NT Event Log error reporting. Windows NT Event Log reporting records application
events that occur allowing for availability and management monitoring of the features and
applications. Commerce Server 2002 continues to support and extend error reporting for application
management.
 An order queuing sample in the SDK. This sample shows how to process orders offline, a high-
availability best practice.

Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview 7

 Commerce Server .NET Application Framework
The Commerce Server 2002 .NET Application Framework brings the .NET developer experience to
Commerce Server. It allows developers to create Commerce Server applications using ASP.NET and
the .NET Framework. The main components of the framework are:
 Application Runtime
 Base Class Library
 Common Language Runtime Interop Layer, which allows ASP.NET applications to benefit from core
Commerce Server services and systems.
 Developer Portal
In addition, Commerce Server includes the International Retail Site, a .NET-based sample site.
Each of these components are described below.

Commerce Server Application Runtime

The Commerce Server Application Runtime is an extension of the core runtime services provided by
ASP.NET that enable .NET-based Commerce Server applications to be configured and run within
ASP.NET. The Application Runtime enables developers to configure the basic Commerce Server services
used by an application from a single place, without having to write any code.
The Application Runtime provides the core integration with ASP.NET, enabling developers to
create .NET-based Commerce Server applications without writing any code to configure the application.
Additionally, Commerce Server customers building .NET-based Commerce Server applications benefit
from the reliability and scalability features built in to ASP.NET, including automatic memory leak
detection, access violation detection, and Web gardens.

Commerce Server Base Class Library

The Commerce Server Base Class Library (BCL) is a collection of native classes, interfaces, and value
types that are included in the Commerce Server .NET Application Framework. This library provides access
to runtime Commerce Server functionality and is designed to be the foundation on which Commerce Server
.NET-based applications are built. The Base Class Library provides complete access to all of the
Commerce Server 2002 runtime services.
The Commerce Server BCL fully leverages the .NET Framework programming model, providing
developers with a consistent experience when building .NET-based Commerce Server applications.
Additionally, Commerce Server’s core services extend the “RAD for the Web” programming model of
ASP.NET because the data exposed by the BCL can be used in conjunction with the out-of-box ASP.NET
Web Server Controls and third-party controls.

Common Language Runtime Interoperability Layer

The Commerce Server .NET Application Framework has been designed to fully leverage the COM
interoperability feature of the common language runtime, and the existing COM-based Commerce Server
infrastructure through the Common Language Interop Layer. This is accomplished through a set of
“Primary Interop Assemblies” for Commerce Server classic COM components in order to make the
migration from classic ASP applications to ASP.NET applications easier.
This means that users of the Commerce Server .NET Application Framework can benefit from the stability
of a platform that has matured over a number of years, while building applications for the relatively
new .NET platform.

8 Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview

Developer Portal
In addition to the runtime services provided by the Commerce Server .NET Application Framework,
Commerce Server 2002 provides an integrated suite of tools, called the Commerce Server Developer
Portal, that are integrated with Visual Studio .NET and help jumpstart the development of .NET-based
Commerce Server applications.
The Developer Portal includes the following features:
 A project creation wizard that enables developers to create new .NET-based Commerce Server projects
from the Visual Studio .NET environment, which is similar to how Web Form applications are created
today.
 Schema designers for the Profiling and Product Catalog Systems hosted in the Visual Studio .NET
environment.
 A tool for generating DataBinding Expressions, making it easier for developers to build ASP.NET Web
Forms that use Web Server Controls.

International Retail Site: A .NET-Based Sample Site

The International Retail site (Retail2002) is a technology preview of a multilingual, multicurrency
business-to-consumer Web site.
The International Retail site demonstrates a business-to-consumer Commerce Server 2002 site built using
ASP.NET and managed code. Much of the functionality of the site is contained in compiled assemblies and
controls that inherit from the classes in those assemblies.
The International Retail site supports multilingual catalogs and demonstrates using .NET CultureInfo data
to control how the site displays text and currency. The architecture of the site is designed to manage text
and images for multiple cultures. For example, the site can differentiate between French (France) and
French Canadian content. It can provide the correct currency, currency symbol, and delimiters for each
while using the same French content translation.
The International Retail Site is a functional example of a site created by using .NET and Commerce Server
2002 technologies. It is a sample site only and was not tested or intended to be production grade. If you
extend the site for your own use, it is recommended that you test the site thoroughly to be sure that the site
and your extensions meet your requirements.

Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview 9

 Product Catalog System
You use the Product Catalog System to import, export, create, and manage online catalogs. By using the
Catalog modules in Commerce Server Business Desk, business managers can create catalogs of products,
and add and update product data.
Business Desk users do not need any specialized knowledge about the databases that store product data,
even if they are assembling a catalog of products from different sources, such as several different suppliers.
The assumed scenarios for using the Product Catalog System include business-to-business sites in which
buyers and suppliers perform transactions that use multiple currencies, and retail sites in which the retail
business has an international clientele.

Key Features in Commerce Server 2002

Virtual Catalogs
Commerce Server 2002 introduces a virtual catalog feature that supercedes and extends the functionality
that was available in custom catalogs in Commerce Server 2000.
Commerce Server 2002 allows you to build complex virtual catalogs and aggregate products from multiple
suppliers on a single SQL Server. Additional support has been added for including or excluding specified
products and/or categories per virtual catalog. The pricing rules have been extended to the product level.
Virtual catalogs can also be exported in the same manner as non-virtual ("base") catalogs.

Support for International Sites

Property enumeration support, or the specification of a particular property as language sensitive (unique
value per language) or language neutral (a single value across languages) now enables Commerce Server
2002 to support language sensitive properties such as DisplayName and DefaultValue. The enumeration of
a set of possible values for a particular property is also possible in Commerce Server 2002. Full text search
of catalogs in specific languages has been enabled.
To support catalogs that price products in multiple currencies, Commerce Server 2002 uses the virtual
catalog feature to create a virtual catalog for each currency. Currency codes are built in attributes on
properties of type Currency.

Improved Scale Points for Catalogs

The following table lists the scale points for Commerce Server catalogs.
Item Size or number supported
Number of catalogs 10,000 base catalogs or 10,000 virtual catalogs
Or, you can use a combination of both base and virtual
catalogs totaling 10,000.
Number of products per catalog Five million
Note
 Commerce Server has not been tested with 10,000
catalogs each containing five million products.
Number of property definitions per catalog 1,000

10 Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview

Number of base catalogs per virtual catalog 80
Number of products per virtual catalog One million
Number of price rules per virtual catalog 10,000
Number of products per category 10,000
Number of nested categories Five

Free Text Searching

The maximum number of concurrently searchable catalogs has been extended. SQL Server 2000 Free Text
Search limited full text searches of catalogs on a single server to 256 simultaneously as a dependency in
Commerce Server 2000. With the addition of virtual catalogs free text search limitations are removed as the
number of virtual catalogs may exceed the limitation but the number of base catalogs being searched
concurrently does not exceed 256. By removing this restriction, scenarios that included 10,000 catalogs
were validated. You can now control the number of full text catalogs created. System administrators can set
this as part of the Product Catalog resource (max_fulltext_catalogs). When the number of product catalogs
equals the maximum number of full text catalogs, product catalogs share a full text catalog.

Securing Catalogs
Tools and properties enabling the implementation of more particular security have been added to
Commerce Server 2002, including the implementation of improved granular security for catalogs within
Business Desk. This enables complete control over who can edit catalogs, specific categories, and specific
properties.

Extended Product Data

Commerce Server supports the SQL text data type, which is not subject to the Microsoft SQL Server row
size limit of 8,060 bytes. Multiple product catalogs can share a single SQL Server full-text catalog.

More Options for Catalog Import/Export

The following Catalog Import/Export features are available in Commerce Server 2002:
 Deletions. A new element type added to the catalog XML can specify that a particular product or
category should be deleted from a catalog.
 Import/export of streams. The import/export for streams rather than only files enables applications to
receive exported data directly rather than writing the data to a file that the other application must read.
 XML validation. XML validation allows a straight XML validation without running an import.
 Incremental exports. Incremental exports will export changes after a specified date. In Commerce
Server 2000, the entire catalog must be exported.
 Browse button for file. Commerce Server 2002 adds support for browsing for a local file to be
uploaded and imported.
 Multilingual catalogs. If you have a multilingual catalog, you can export it in all languages, or in one
specific language. You can export it in one language, and then import the translated version.

Join with User-Defined Tables

Commerce Server 2002 provides the ability to join query results with a user-defined table. This allows
support for scenarios such as retrieving real-time inventory or applying complex pricing.

Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview 11

 Enhanced Attribute Support
User-defined catalog and property attributes are now supported, enabling the storage of catalog-level values
and property metadata.
Native support of “Required” properties has been introduced in Commerce Server 2002.

General Enhancements
Commerce Server 2002 includes the following:
 Searching restricted to a category. For example, you can search for television that cost less than
$350.00.
 Extending of the Category property with a built-in DisplayName. This avoids the confusion of
requiring unique Category names, a requirement in Commerce Server 2000, and allows a unique value
per language.
 Primary parent category for products and categories. This creates a canonical path to any item and
removes ambiguity for virtual categories or when using category pricing.

Profiling System
You use the Commerce Server Profiling System to collect information you specify for any business-related
item. For example, you can collect profile information for anonymous users, a context (such as the date and
time of a visit), or an organization.
Microsoft Commerce Server provides the ability to aggregate user profile data from multiple physical
stores and present this to the application developer as a single object. More importantly, this capability can
be easily extended to manage any logical business entity.
Profile information is stored in the Profiles data store, which can be based in Active Directory, SQL Server,
or both. You can export data from the Profiles data store into the Data Warehouse, and then using
Commerce Server Business Desk you can analyze the profile data that is collected.
The assumed scenarios for Commerce Server 2002 for the Profiling System include: Medical records stored
online, hosted Exchange integration, very large sites with high concurrent usage, Enterprise environments
with complex existing profile data, and Enterprise environments with distributed management of profiles.

Key Features in Commerce Server 2002

Large User Communities
 Increased scalability to support the largest Internet commerce sites and large-scale aggregator
sites or ASPs. Commerce Server 2002 is being tested to support up to 25 million SQL-authenticated
users and 10 MM Active Directory-authenticated users. Large-scale sites require data stores that can
perform at higher concurrent loads. Memory management fixes and performance counter support are
included.
 Improved group management capabilities. Manage groups on sites that deploy more than 5000
members within a group.
 Sharing of the Authentication Filter with Exchange 2000. Large portal sites and MCIS sites
deployed with HTML Mail Interface (HMI) are deploying Exchange 2000 Outlook Web Access
(OWA). Interoperability with Exchange 2000 OWA is added in Commerce Server 2002 to pass the user
name in AUTH_USER.

12 Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview

Profiling System Interfaces
 Support for the SOAP interface for heterogeneous platform data centers. Enabling the
implementation of the SOAP interface facilitates multi-platform access to the Profiling System,
resulting in reduced integration effort, and provides a path to multi-platform single sign on. This is a
requirement for Enterprise integration.
Commerce Server facilitates easier implementation of SOAP interfaces (must still be built by
customers) by providing additional interfaces that accept XML parameter arguments.
 Improved providers for LDAP v3 and OLEDB profile stores. This is a requirement for enterprise
integration.
 Support for a generic and customizable profile editor. In sites with large user populations and types
of profile objects support for generic or customized editing of profiles this feature reduces user interface
complexity and improves operations.

Securing Profiles
 Tools and properties enabling implementation of more granular security. Implementing a security
framework improves the security policy deployment for large sites by providing granular control over
who may create/modify different profile user attributes.
 Use Windows NT Authentication for data store connections. This facilitates the use of native
Windows security objects and audit logging.
 Support for rolling key encryption for profile tickets. Providing support for rolling key encryption
facilitates continuity of the Data Warehouse and analysis by allowing migration of profile tickets
encrypted with old keys. This improves security operations and management of a site.
 Support for encryption of profile data. Providing support for data encryption allows secure storage of
sensitive data. Two encryption methods are provided: one-way hash for storage of password secrets,
and asymmetric encryption for storage of credit cards and other data that requires separate decryption.
This improves security of user profile information.

Profile Schema Management

 Extended data types: views, embedded profiles, and multi-valued site terms.
 Use of views: Views accommodate scenarios where join key for an existing data store is comprised as a
composite key aggregated from several different columns. This is a requirement for Enterprise
integration. This is supported for SQL 2000 databases only
 Multi-valued embedded profiles: In sites with large user populations the profile objects support in-
place editing, up to four levels of embedded profiles reduces user interface complexity and improves
operations.
 Multi-valued site terms: (A site term is a specific value pertinent to a site assigned to a profile
property type.) This feature improves site development. This feature has been previously supported, but
a user interface has been added.
 Scripted deployment of profile schemas: Commerce Server 2002 facilitates scripted deployment of
profile schemas by providing a set of methods on the BDAO2 interface. These methods allow Import,
and Export of profile schemas as XML files.
 Schema export/import: Providing an MMC module/task that allows for export/import of Profile
schemas improves deployment manageability.

Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview 13

 Support for International Sites
Extended profile schema to add properties to track the site user’s preference for language. The Advertising
Sitelet in the SDK demonstrates using this property for targeting users, while the Profiling Sitelet
demonstrates how to register users with support for language selection.

Targeting System
The Targeting System is a high-performance, versatile platform that business managers use to target
content to any business-related item or condition. It includes a consistent targeting model so business
managers use only one technology to target different business conditions.
The assumed scenarios for Commerce Server 2002 for the Targeting System include multiple discount
sequencing per item in a single order, multiple discounting type in a single order (for example, specific
dollar amount off and percentage discount), and a enabling item-level and over-level (for example, order
based or buy two get one free) in a single order.
Some common discount scenarios are not handled out of the box, including gift with purchase, product
bundling, and coupons.

Key Features in Commerce Server 2002

 Multilingual support. Multiple campaigns can be created in individual languages within a single
campaign database. This enables you to create multiple campaign items in a single language, targeting a
single culture while fulfilling a single campaign-level goal.
 Single campaign for many languages. Individual campaign items can be created in multiple languages
within a single campaign. This enables you to create campaign items targeting multiple languages and
cultures while fulfilling a single campaign-level goal, or individual campaign item-level goals.
 Multiple discount support. Multiple discounts can now be applied concurrently to the same line item
or order subtotal by specifying a Discount Interaction Policy. This provides Business Managers with
finer grained control over discounts and how they apply to orders in Commerce Server.
 Order level discounts. Dollar-off and percentage discounts can now be created for the Subtotal of an
entire order, instead of only for individual line items.
 Discount interaction policies. The merchandising manager can control the way multiple discounts
interact with each other, in a very granular fashion, using a easy-to-use interface in Business Desk ( 4
check boxes)
 Distributing order level discounts. The order-level discount amount is not applied at the subtotal
level, but is distributed evenly among the different items that form the order. As a result, when a
product is returned, the refund is more accurate.

Business Processing Pipelines System

You use the Business Processing Pipeline System to customize your order, targeting, and merchandising
processes. Using pipelines, you can define and link together the stages of a business process.
For example, the Order Processing pipeline (OPP) provides the sequence of steps that are used to process
purchases from your site. In the first stage in the Order Processing pipeline, you retrieve product
information from the database that stores catalog data. In the next stage, you add the address of the user to
the order. Each stage in the pipeline represents a category of work. The sequence of the stages determines
the sequence in which the work is to be done.

14 Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview

The assumed scenarios for the Business Processing Pipeline System include a business-to-business scenario
in which the buyer and supplier handle multiple currencies, and a retail scenario in which supplier has
international customers.

Key Features in Commerce Server 2002

 Multilingual support for the Order Processing Pipeline. Commerce Server 2002 supports retrieval
of products and line item detail in multiple languages in the pipeline. This enables you to maintain
product catalogs in different languages, and allow users to purchase from each of these catalogs without
having to localize the data in each catalog.
 Support for localizable shipping methods. This allows tying shipping methods to a geography and
localization of shipping methods and descriptions.
 Improved storage of baskets and orders. The databases associated with storing baskets and orders
have been updated to include support for storage of the following information: The booking currency
(default currency) of the site, the booking currency of the supplier providing the goods to the site, the
user’s preferred currency. This enables you to plug-in 3rd party software accounting packages to
produce reports on this data.
 Updated version of the Order Sitelet. The Order Sitelet in the SDK is updated to demonstrate how to
implement multicurrency transactions.

Business Analytics System

The Business Analytics System provides complete decision support through data warehousing, prediction
and data mining, and advanced analysis. You can install Microsoft Commerce Server 2002 to use the
Business Analytics System as a stand-alone feature, and you can use it with non-Commerce applications.
Due to the limited scale of a Standard Edition deployment, advanced analytics is enabled only in Enterprise
Edition. Data Warehouse and Analysis in the Standard Edition includes basic sales, Web usage reports, and
data cubes. Use Enterprise Edition for advanced analytics, including multiple cube partitions, data mining,
extending the Data Warehouse, custom report generation, campaign reports, user profile reports, and ad
reports.
The Business Analytics System is divided into three main parts.
 Data Warehouse. A combination of a SQL Server database, an OLAP database, and a set of processes
that a system administrator uses to import a large amount of operational data about site activity. The
Commerce Server Data Warehouse stores and manages data in the database for the purpose of business
analytics: prediction and data mining, and analysis reporting.
 Predictor. A powerful data-mining tool that you use to provide predictive capabilities for your Web
site, for example, to display product recommendations. You also use the Predictor to analyze the
characteristics of the users visiting your site, and discover relationships among the characteristics. You
can then use this information to target content to users who have similar characteristics.
 Analysis Reporting. Dozens of reports, enabling to you analyze product sales, Web usage, Web site
diagnostics, and so on. It includes features that make reporting easy and fast.
Each of these sub-systems is described in the following sections.

Business Data Warehouse

The Data Warehouse imports a large amount of data collected from several different data sources. It
collects day-to-day operational data about users who visit your site: user profile data, transaction data, and
click-history data. It also collects product data and advertising data. This data is gathered from Web server

Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview 15

 logs, Microsoft Commerce Server databases, and other data sources that you specify. The Data Warehouse
then manages the data in the database so that it can be easily accessed for use in Prediction models and
creating reports.
The assumed scenario for Commerce Server 2002 includes support for large scale organizations, large
multinational organizations with multilingual and multicurrency issues, and site aggregators such as
Application Service Providers (ASP).

Key Features in Commerce Server 2002

 Business Analytics support for both commerce sites and non-commerce sites. This allows the
choice of an existing site to attach the Data Warehouse resource to during setup.
 Improved manageability of the Data Warehouse and DTS task interface. A Data Warehouse
import wizard has been added that can be launched from the Business Analytics Setup, Commerce
Server Manager, or the Start menu. The wizard allows the import operations to be enabled without
having to use the more complex DTS interface in SQL.
 Enhanced recoverability for Web log imports. Recoverability for applications and services requires
that, upon failure, that application or service can be restarted and if applicable, can be recovered to the
last checkpoint. Commerce Server 2002 implements check-pointing for long-running processing such
that a failure does not require processing from the beginning, it simply continues from the checkpoint
immediately before the failure occurred.
 Added support for multiple sites. The sites have a host header that identifies which site generated an
IIS log message which can be imported.
 Naming of log files is more flexible. This allows for specification of multiple site and non-commerce
log file formats. By allowing configuration of log file name mask, granularity is added with regards to
the time a log file was opened.
 Naming masks other than the default predefined IIS log file masks are added. Users are able to
configure what the log file name mask is in order to support hosting and non-commerce scenarios.
 Script support for DTS tasks. Adding this feature allows automation of creating and scheduling
processes, such as Web log imports, for each site.
 Added DTS operations support at the Data Warehouse level. Previous versions only allowed DTS
tasks to be created at the site level. In order to better support multiple sites in one Data Warehouse,
Data Warehouse DTS has been expanded to support either site level tasks or Data Warehouse level
tasks. This feature has been added to both the Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition.
 Commerce Server 2002 improves overall integration with the following features:
 Enable Commerce Server cookie-less mode user identification. Commerce Server 2002 supports
cookie-less mode user identification. Users can control whether or not they allow cookies. This
allows sites to track users of this type. Commerce Server 2002 does this via a URI query string. A
Web log import configuration is provided that allows the Data Warehouse to track users based on
this URI value. User identification is enabled for ASP.NET cookieless sessions as well.
 Support catalog reporting language. Commerce Server 2002 adds support for catalog reporting
language. This is specified on a per catalog basis.
 Support multiple currencies in reports. Commerce Server 2002 improves support for
multinational organizations with several changes. Improved support for transaction currencies
imports the booking currency for the site and the preferred currency of the user.
 Multilanguage support: Commerce Server 2002 has added Unicode for profiles, catalogs,
transactions, and marketing campaigns.

16 Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview

Predictor
The Predictor, a feature in Microsoft Commerce Server Enterprise Edition, is a powerful data-mining
resource that you use to provide predictive capabilities for your Web site, for example, to display product
recommendations to a site user. You also use the Predictor to analyze the characteristics of the users
visiting your site, and to discover relationships among the characteristics. You can then use this information
to target content to users who have similar characteristics.
For example, using the Predictor you can provide the following features on your Web site:
 Cross-sell and cross-browse. Provide real-time product recommendations for users to buy or browse as
they shop for products on your Web site.
 Targeted advertising. Target banner ads and e-mails that are personalized for each user based on their
browsing and shopping behavior on your site.
You can use the analysis features of the Predictor to automatically segment your site users based on their
buying and browsing behavior on your site, and then use the results of this analysis to target content to
users. You can also make statistically informed guesses about the demographic makeup of every user based
on the products they purchase and the pages they browse on your site.

Key Features in Commerce Server 2002

 Prediction Resource Tutorial. Use this step-by-step tutorial to learn how to use the Predictor for
cross-sell and cross-browse, demographic prediction, targeted advertising, and user segmentation.
 Model viewers. You can analyze Prediction models using the Prediction Model Viewer accessed
through Commerce Server Manager, and you can analyze Segment models using the Segment Viewer
module in Business Desk. You can export the results of both prediction analysis and segment analysis
as lists, so you can target content to users.
 Prediction Model Configuration Wizard. You use the Predictor Model Configuration Wizard to set
up the following model configurations provided with Commerce Server Enterprise Edition:
 Transactions. Use to build analysis models that predict the products that users are likely to buy.
For example, your site could present each user with a list of personal product recommendations.
 Demographics. Use to build analysis models that predict the demographic characteristics that your
users are likely to share. For example, you can use the demographic analysis models to improve
your understanding of the registered users who visit your site.
 Combined Transactions and Demographics. Use to build analysis models that predict likely
relationships between demographic characteristics and product purchases. The accuracy of this
model is directly proportional to the number of registered users on your Web site.
 Product Browsing. Use to build analysis models that predict the products that your users are likely
to browse. For example, you can place links on your site that are relevant to your users.
 Ad Click. Use to build analysis models that predict the ads that your users are likely to click.

Analysis Reporting
The Analysis Reporting features enable you to analyze the data stored in the Data Warehouse. Microsoft
Commerce Server provides dozens of reports so you can analyze product sales, Web site usage, site
diagnostics, and so on.
You use the Analysis modules in Commerce Server Business Desk to run reports. If you are using
Commerce Server Enterprise Edition, you can export the report results as lists, and then target content to
users.

Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview 17

 Key Features in Commerce Server 2002
 Grouped reports. Commerce Server 2002 includes additional reporting capabilities by providing
“grouped reports” for interest groups or different sites.
 Added reporting attributes. Requirements for catalog reporting, sales by a defined attribute of the
group such as locale, have been added to business analytics. For example, sorting reports based on a
dimension or set of input parameters can produce a report per unique member of that dimension, such
as generating a report for each of your advertisers, but only running the report once with separate
packaged results according to the input parameters. This applies to both static and dynamic reports.
 Remote OLAP cube access. Commerce Server 2002 adds support for cross-Windows-domain cube
access because in many deployments the report, consumer, and the relational and OLAP databases are
not on the same domain.
 Updated Web Control Support. Support for the Office XP Web controls.
 Drill through on Pivot Lists. The Office Web controls with reporting adds drill-through from a Pivot
List (expansion or compression of view for data detail within the OLAP cube). By not requiring detail
data at all levels in the reports, Commerce Server 2002 can handle larger amounts of data in well-
designed cubes and storage.
 Reporting for Multilingual Data. For multilingual properties, the Data Warehouse imports data in one
language. This language can be configured for each catalog using the Reporting Language property in
the Business Desk Catalog Definition Designer module.

Business Desk
Commerce Server Business Desk is a Web-based site management tool included with Commerce Server
2002. Business Desk hosts business management modules that non-technical business managers use to
configure, manage, and analyze your sites. For example, you use Business Desk modules to update pricing
information in your catalogs, target new ads to specific users, and then run reports to measure how these
changes affect site productivity.
The assumed Commerce Server 2002 scenarios for Business Desk include support for large multinational
organizations. This includes organizations where independent business units may have control over specific
aspects of business, such as marketing, advertising, catalog management, product pricing, and so forth.
Business Desk has a limitation of ten concurrent users per Business Desk application. In addition, Business
Desk requires bandwidth connectivity.

Key Features in Commerce Server 2002

 Enhanced properties and objects for implementing security plans. Commerce Server 2000 only
supported application level security with modules on or off for each user. Commerce Server 2002
allows implementation of application level granular security to be set on a per user basis so that access
can be controlled at the module and task level. Using the Business Desk Permissions module, you can
specify users that are allowed access to tasks within a module. The Business Desk framework is
responsible for only exposing tasks to which a user has permission to access. Business Desk security
objects and properties are granular enough to allow advanced security settings, including:
 Per property, category, catalog permissions for catalog
 Per Business Desk module and task
 Per profile property for the Profiling System

18 Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview

  The Permissions module to secure and manage the Business Desk user interface. Use Windows groups
to define roles for Business Desk users, such as catalog schema editors, analysis team, Business Desk
Administrators, and so on.
 Enhanced widgets. Commerce Server 2002 supports enhanced widgets for double-clicking list sheet
items and right button context menus.
 Different Style Sheets. Commerce Server 2002 Business Desk is enhanced to support different style
sheets. This allows for different themes, including a high-contrast mode for accessibility.

Summary
Commerce Server 2002 builds upon the strong foundation of Commerce Server 2000, enabling additional
scalability, performance, high availability, more sophisticated and flexible catalog management and
capabilities for creating and managing an international sites. Nearly every area of the product has been
improved to provide the next level of capability based on extensive feedback from our partners and
customers. Accordingly, Commerce Server 2002 offers a more reliable platform for building Internet
businesses more rapidly, with richer features than ever before.
An important feature of this new product is tight integration with the Visual Studio .NET development
environment. A Base Class Library, integrated developer portal, and an application runtime is provided
which empowers customers to write managed code using the new languages Visual C# and Visual
Basic .NET.
In addition, Commerce Server 2002 is offered in various editions in order to more closely match the
intended uses of the product. These editions include Evaluation, Developer, Standard, and Enterprise.

Commerce Server 2002 Technical Overview 19