ARCHITECTURAL FRAMEWORK OF E-COMMERCE
A Frame Work is intended to define and create tools that integrate the information found in today’s closed
system and allow the development of E-commerce applications. Architectural framework should focus on
synthesizing the diverse resources already in place incorporation to facilitate the integration of data and
software for better use and application
The E-commerce applications architecture consists of 6 layers of functionality or services.
1. Application Services Customer –to-Business –Marketplace
Business-to-Business –Market link
Intra –Organization- Market Driven
2. Brokerage Services Order Processing
Payment Schemes- Electronic Cash
Software agents
3. Interface support layer Interactive catalogues
Directory Support Functions
4. Secure messaging & EDI Secure hypertext transfer protocol
Encryption e-mail, EDI
5. Middleware, structured document Structured Documents
interchange. SGML-Standard generalizes Mark-up Language
HTML- Hypertext mark-up language
6. Network infrastructure and Wireless- Cellar, Radio, PCs (Personal Communication,
providing communication services. Services)
POTS (Plain old Telephone Services, Coaxial Fiber option
1. Electronic Commerce Application Services
Three distinct classes of electronic commerce applications
Consumer-to-Business Transaction: This is called market place transaction. In a market place
transaction, customers learn about products differently through electronic publishing, buy them
differently using electronic cash and secure payment systems and have them delivered differently.
Business-to-Business Transactions: This is called market link transaction. Businesses,
government, and other organizations depend on computer-to-computer communication as a fast, an
economical, and a dependable way to conduct business transactions. Business-to-Business transactions
include the use of EDI and electronic mail for purchasing goods and services, buying information and
consulting services, submitting requests for proposals and receiving proposals.
Intraorganizational Transactions: This is called market driven transactions. A company
becomes market driven by dispersing throughout the firm information about its customers and
competitors; by spreading strategic and tactical decision making so that all units can participate and by
continuously monitoring their customer commitment by making improved customer satisfaction.
2. Information Brokerage and Management:
Information brokerage and management layer provides service integration through the notion of
information brokerages, the development of which is necessitated by the increasing information resource
fragmentation.
Information brokers are becoming necessary in dealing with the voluminous amounts of information on
the networks. With the complexity associated with large number of on-line databases and service bureaus,
it is impossible to expect humans to do searching. Information broken or software agents that act on the
searchers behalf.
3. Interface and Support Services
This layer provides interfaces for electronic commerce applications such as interactive catalogs and will
support directory services functions necessary for information search and access.
Interactive catalogs are the customized interface to consumer applications such as home shopping.
Directories operate behind the scenes and attempt to organize the enormous amount of information and
transactions generated facilitate electronic commerce.
The primary difference between the two is that unlike interactive catalogs, which deal with people,
directory support services interact directly with software
4. Secure Messaging and structured Document Interchange Services
Messaging is the software that sits between the network infrastructure and the clients or electronic
commerce applications, masking the peculiarities of the environment.
Messaging services offer solutions for communicating non-formatted data letters, memos, reports as well
as formatted data such as purchase orders, shipping notices, and invoices.
Unstructured messaging consists of Fax, e-mail, and form-based systems like Lotus Notes.
Structured documents messaging consists of the automated interchanging standardized and approved
messages between computer applications. Ex: EDI
Messaging supports both synchronous and asynchronous message delivery and processing. It is
not associated with any communication protocol. With messaging tools, people can communicate and
work together more effectively.
Security, privacy and confidentiality through data encryption and authentication techniques are
important issues that need to be resolved for ensuring the legality of the message-based transactions.
5. Middleware Services
With the growth of networks, Client Server technology, and all other forms of communicating
between/among unlike platforms, the problems of getting all the pieces to work together became a
necessity.
Middleware helps to mediate between diverse software programs that enables them talk to one another.
To achieve data-centric computing, middleware services focus on three elements; transparency,
transaction security and management and distributed object management and services. (You can omit
the details given below if you wish)
Transparency: Transparency is accomplished using middleware that facilitates a distributed computing
environment. This gives users and applications transparent access to data, computation, and other
resources across collections of multi-vendor, heterogeneous systems.
Transaction Security and Management: Security and management are essential to all layers in the
electronic commerce model. At the transaction security level, two broad general categories of security
services exist; authentication and authorization. For electronic commerce, middleware provides the
qualities expected in a standard TP system: ACID properties.
Distributed Object Management and Services
Object orientation is proving fundamental to the proliferation of network-based application. Instance of
an object in electronic commerce is a document. The term object is being used interchangeably with
document resulting in a new form of computing called document-oriented computing. The trend is
moving from single data type documents to integrated documents known as compound architectures
6. Network Infrastructure: E-Commerce requires reliable network infrastructure to move the
information and execute the transactions in a distributed environment.
The main components of these networks are Extranets, Intranets, wireless networks, Radio networks and
the Internet. The construction of reliable network infrastructure requires hardware components like hubs,
switches and routers etc. The coaxial cables, fibre optical cables, radio and satellite-based transmission
mechanisms are some modes utilized for the physical transmission of the data over the network.
