Dennis P. Geller, Ph.D
Breaking into E-commerce can
have you going in circles. That''s not necessarily bad - you may not be
sure where you are or where you''re going, but there''s a limit to how
lost you can get. Even so, it''s natural to want to get your bearings:
E-commerce can be a dizzying ride. One report predicts that online sales
in just one niche market will soon reach $3.5 billion. Another says that
E-commerce will save businesses trillions in just a few years. Pretty
exciting stuff, and everyone in the company wants a piece of it. But in
the small print those same pundits suggest that the costs of building an
E-commerce site top a million dollars, that most projects end up late,
and that nobody really has a clue how to measure ROI. Would the best
thing be to circle the wagons and start shooting?
As always, the way to get
around the uncertainties is to have a map. Some maps are very precise,
which is great when you can get one, but when trudging through uncharted
territory its enough to know the major landmarks and where they lie in
relation to each other. Any topographic information is a real plus.
This map is a guide to the
E-commerce space. Partitioned into three concentric circles, it can both
prepare you for your trip and keep you from bumping into the bigger
obstacles.
The Inner Circle (banish any thoughts of Dante) represents the basic infrastructure - both hardware and software - that''s needed to get started in just about any form of E-commerce. You start walking counterclockwise from the place called IT/Networking. Even without specific web experience the knowledge already in this department will be the foundation for everything else. You''ll want to cover all of the bases to get out of this circle: Note, by the way, that in this ring there are many opportunities for outsourcing.
- Routers: You already have routers for your
network, but there are special models (and considerations) in web
space.
- Firewalls: Depending on the kinds of web
usage and applications, a router may not provide all the security you
need. A firewall - technically a software product but typically
running on its own small server -can offer greater security and
flexibility.
- Servers: The riskiest thing about choosing a
server is that you won''t be able to get a reliable prediction for the
load it''s going to carry. What you can be sure of is that once an
E-commerce site goes up, any little glitch is going to cause
palpitations in the executive suite. So you need to look at
fault-tolerant or redundant hardware solutions.
- Mail Servers: A mail server is software, and
you probably have one already for corporate e-mail. But E-commerce can
inflate both the magnitude of e-mail and the functionality needed from
the server, so it''s not safe to assume that the solution you have will
stand up to the job. Long-term performance considerations may dictate
that this live on its own server, but that''s a decision that may not
be required at the start. Fax serving may also be a consideration,
especially in a B2B web site.
- Storage Systems: Again, the requirements of
reliability and continual uptime may cause you to investigate
different models from the ones you''re used to.
- Web Servers: This is the software that serves
the web content to the user''s browser. Unfortunately, while the major
players all have about the same functionality, this will prove to be a
religious decision (Netscape vs. Microsoft, open vs. proprietary)
that is going to involve IT staff, programmers, and web
designers. These battles actually started up above when you picked the
server hardware, didn''t they? Note, by the way, that you''ll see vendor
offerings for "Commerce Servers." These are webservers enhanced with
support for certain commerce activities. Use them out of the box or as
toolkits for custom solutions, especially where a one-vendor solution
makes sense.
- Databases: Another area where there is
certainly core competency in the IT/Networking department, databases
can present special challenges in a few ways. While the OLTP model is
important, many websites require that information be sliced, diced and
extracted in ways that don''t easily fit the relational model. Also,
the rate at which they are hit can exceed what you''ve seen in
traditional IT applications.
- Backup: Even something as basic as backup
(and recovery!) has its own web spin. The well known problems at E-Bay
highlight the need for redundancy at all levels, but unlike more
traditional IT approaches, there is no overnight window for periodic
backup, and delays of hours in reloading a database won''t be
tolerated. ("Dammit, Scottie, I need warp drive now!" "Aye, Captain,
I''ll do me best.") Meeting business needs here requires a combination
of software, hardware and network approaches.
