Developing with Commerce Server 2009
The primary development task with Commerce Server is the creation of a Web site that takes advantage of the various Commerce Server features to facilitate the display and acquisition of a set of products by customers. Seen this way, the Catalog System and the Orders System are perhaps most central to the ultimate purpose of Commerce Server, with the other systems backing up these primary systems. The Catalog System also allows you to provide your customers with more information about the availability of particular products. The Marketing System helps you make your Commerce Server Web site more successful through the use of advertising and content targeting. The Profiles System allows you to keep track of your customers and to help provide them with a personalized experience within your Commerce Server Web site. The Data Warehouse Analytics System helps you to understand how customers use your Commerce Server Web site so that you can improve their experience over time.
The following figure shows the high-level Commerce Server 2009 architecture:
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Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation
Microsoft Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation debuts the next-generation programming model for Commerce Server 2009. The new Microsoft Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation simplifies and unifies the programming model, and is optimized for consumer-oriented multi-channel retailing as it pervasively establishes and maintains the notion of medium/device, brand, and locale.
The Commerce Foundation benefits developers by:
Reducing developer ramp-up time by providing a consistent programming model across all Commerce Server 2009 functional areas
Providing a clear separation of presentation logic and business logic, allowing for multiple presentation support
Providing an extensibility model that lets developers more easily enhance functionality both for general and business-specific purposes
Commerce Server Core Systems
Commerce Server 2009 also retains full support for single channel site implementations using ASP.NET through the Commerce Server Core Systems programming model. Existing sites can retain their existing code base, and still take advantage of the Microsoft Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation programming model.
SharePoint Commerce Services
Commerce Server 2009 also provides a rich, out-of-the-box shopping Web site that enables you to get your store online quickly and that your shoppers can access across multiple channels. The basis for the out-of-the-box Web site is ASP.NET 2.0 Web Parts and other SharePoint Commerce Services.
Out-of-the-box Web site
The out-of-the-box Web site consists of many Web Parts that are interconnected and that communicate through the Microsoft Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation to Commerce Server Core Systems. By interconnecting the Web Parts, you can create a logic workflow for many different shopping experiences. The out-of-the-box Web site reduces the need for developer coding or administrator intervention. Business users, site designers, and other non-developers can create user interfaces by simply adding Web Parts to predetermined templates in their browser, and they can personalize them by setting properties; all of which you do through the editing functionality in Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS).
Hosting Model
You can host the Commerce Server 2009 service as a presentation self-hosted Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) service by using net.pipe through a non-secure channel or by using net.tcp where the channel security is defined through the WCF configuration.
Note
While WCF is not supported as an enabled service in this release, it has not been disabled.