Creating a Global E-Commerce Website With E-Business Suite and Fusion Middleware

Creating a Global eCommerce Site with EBusiness Suite and Fusion Middleware Brian “Bex” Huff Chief Software Architect Oracle ACE DirectorMonday, October 17, 2011

The Project  The Web Site Redesign (WSR) project • Goal: completely re-vamp a 10-year old product website  The company • Multinational firm, heavily regulated industry • Fortune 500 company  The team • Approximately 80 people  My role • WebCenter architect, designer, and developer 2Monday, October 17, 2011

High-Level Requirements  Fast and easy contribution by business owners • Mostly public content: secured edits  Workflow process for all content changes • Track who changed what, when, why  Support for multiple regions/countries locales  Applications and content on the same pages • E-Commerce ordering tools • End-user calculators and other small applications  Global Search Engine Optimization: “Google Friendly” URLs 3Monday, October 17, 2011

The Challenges  Different products available in different markets • Users must never see a product they cannot purchase  Different regulations per region • You can’t say that in Germany!  Taxonomy was surprisingly critical • Incorrectly tagged content could lead to fines!  What’s the best way to blend content and applications? 4Monday, October 17, 2011

More Challenges  60+ product families • Each has a “business owner”  IE 6 must be supported • Unfortunately...  Different prices for different customers / locations 5Monday, October 17, 2011

The Stack!  Mostly Oracle  Infrastructure • Linux, Oracle Database, GFS  Framework • WebLogic Portal, SPRING, AJAX, and JavaScript  Back-End • Enterprise Applications and middleware  Security • Several identity management applications 6Monday, October 17, 2011

Stack Diagram 7Monday, October 17, 2011

Infrastructure  Oracle Enterprise Linux • Why not?  Oracle Database 11g • What else?  Red Hat Global File System (GFS) • Needed a shared file system in the SAN • Multiple nodes in the system had to share files  Load Balancers • Hardware and software (PEN) 8Monday, October 17, 2011

Framework  WebLogic Application Server and Portal • 3-node cluster for main web site, and admin interface • 2-node cluster each for UCM, OID, IDOL, everything else!  “WSR Admin” portal • Configuration, customers, orders, product launches  SPRING • Open source toolkit for creating web front-ends in Java  JavaScript libraries • jQuery toolkit for front-facing • ExtJS for Admin interface 9Monday, October 17, 2011

Back-End Applications: Existing  E-Business Suite • Contracts, customers, products for sale  Product Information Management (QAD/FullTilt) • Product specs: size, weight, etc. • Categorization into product catalogs • Localizable, but unfortunately not normalized  Documentum • Repository for technical manuals • “Tactical” integration: content exported, but repository remains • Full consolidation out of scope of current project! 10Monday, October 17, 2011

Back-End Applications: New  WebCenter Content (UCM) 10gr3 • Main content repository  Site Studio 10gr4 • Built on top of UCM • Site navigation, web content, images, CSS, JS • Has the “Open WCM” web services we need  Autonomy Idol • Enterprise Search 11Monday, October 17, 2011

Apps Challenges  Speed was critical! • Needed to make custom web services to query eBiz tables directly  Multiple search indexes • One per locale: critical the people only search in their locale!  Blending the data together 12Monday, October 17, 2011

Security  Active Directory • Used for internal employees • Integration needed for UCM and Admin site rights  Oracle Internet Directory • Used for external customers • Needed to log in, make orders, view pages  Oracle Access Manager • Single-Sign-On 13Monday, October 17, 2011

Security Configuration 14Monday, October 17, 2011

Integration Strategy  Portal front-end blends everything together  Content stored and managed by WebCenter Content • Marketing literature for products • General web pages, contact us, literature downloads, video • Localized versions of web assets  Site navigation controlled by Site Studio • Opt-in, Opt-out  Product information controlled by QAD • Localized and normalized there • Export the raw data to the portal’s database 15Monday, October 17, 2011

Integrations  Portal - EBuisness Suite • Some TIBCO Web Services, some custom Web Services • Create Order, Order Details, Item Price services • Consumed via AJAX from portlet  Portal - Product Info / QAD • PIM data not fully normalized • Get a “dump” of raw data nightly • Organize it in WSR database in more useful ways • Create a “view” on this table, to drive UCM metadata tags • Tree-control to “tag” a page as belonging to a product catalog 16Monday, October 17, 2011

Integrations, cont.  Portal - UCM • Used “Open WCM” Web Services and a custom servlet • Did not use Site Studio for External Applications (SSXA) • Needed localization features unavailable in SSXA • Used RIDC bean • Cached with EHCache • Taxonomy controlled by UCM  Portal - Database • Spring DOA, and hand-written SQL • Tried Hibernate, ditched it half way through • ORM frameworks look good on paper... but... • Only worth the effort if using a 2nd layer cache, which we weren’t 17Monday, October 17, 2011

Search Engine  IDOL needed one repository per locale • Also needed STRICT adherence to taxonomy  Did not have a UCM connector • HTTP web spider would not be fast enough for multiple locales  Custom connector • Database view on Revisions and DocMeta table • Scheduled task to watch for new content • Determined the URL based on xWebSiteSection • Determined taxonomy/locale from other metadata 18Monday, October 17, 2011

“Admin” Portal  Custom interface to E Business suite and OID • Create users, manage email templates • Enable products to be for sale online in specific regions • Manage / edit orders • Create a new “region” to enable sales / new website • Create new training class schedule / locations • Customer email subscriptions • Custom reports 19Monday, October 17, 2011

Custom Portal Controller  Import the “Site Studio Navigation” file from UCM/Site Studio • Contains the full navigation for the site • All content references, and “tokens” representing specific AJAX apps  Generate site navigation for each locale • Inherit navigation/content from the “global” locale • Opt in / opt out of specific pages  Inject AJAX applications when “Tokens” found on page • Users can select which AJAX app they want • Data files “tagged” with a product ID or catalog • Auto-generated AJAX • Some templates 20Monday, October 17, 2011

Custom Navigation Editor App 21Monday, October 17, 2011

Security Integration  Most was out-of-the-box • OAM / OID works well with WebLogic and UCM • Some issues with OAM and non-signed applets  Some customizations needed • Simplified “customer info” editor in the Admin portal  Custom AJAX controller • Security through AJAX is tricky • Sessions expire while still on the page • AJAX needs to handle session expiration, and redirect • Made custom OAM AccessGate 22Monday, October 17, 2011

Data Cache  Use the distributed EHCache code  Extremely easy to make existing SPRING code cachable @Cacheable(cacheName="ucmCache") public String renderPlaceholderByDocName(IdcContext userContext, ! String docName, String placeholderDefinitionName, String siteId, ! String nodeId, boolean isContrib, String userLocale) { ... } 23Monday, October 17, 2011

Web Cache  Use front-end Apache server with mod_proxy  Problem: entire web site is HTTPS • Browsers by default do not cache secure traffic • Problem: with all the JavaScript libraries, some pages were 1 MB! • Caching those static resources critical  Apache server tuning • For all cachable content, set Cache-Control: public • Do not cache content from AJAX controller • Force AJAX to reload on every page to avoid stale content • mod_deflate • GZIP-compress rarely changing text files (JS/CSS/XML) 24Monday, October 17, 2011

Technical Architecture 25Monday, October 17, 2011

Product Catalog 26Monday, October 17, 2011

AJAX Embedded Application 27Monday, October 17, 2011

Business-Controlled Content 28Monday, October 17, 2011

Lessons Learned  Hire a team that’s done it before • Primary reason behind previous “false starts”  Avoid GFS like the plague! • Extremely difficult to set up properly • A file locking snafu would seize up all nodes in the system until rebooted!  More frequent code reviews, and project patterns • Could have avoided some • Tough to do, when the team’s under a tight deadline  OAM/WebGate has issues with non-signed Applets • UCM side was tricky to get working with SSO 29Monday, October 17, 2011

If I Had To Do It All Over Again...  Straight WebLogic for front-end, no Portal • Admin interface used portlet features, but • Front-end web site was all in one SPRING portlet • Google-Friendly URLs would be easier • AJAX controller would be easier • Oracle really needs a lightweight Java framework for websites...  Use Diesel Point for search engine • IDOL was overkill, both in cost and features used  Focus on ONE JavaScript framework, and keep it lean • Because of the “plugin” architecture, jQuery grows like weeds • Pages can become HUGE relatively quickly 30Monday, October 17, 2011

Questions?  My Company: http://bezzotech.com  My Blog: http://bexhuff.com  My Self: bex@bezzotech.com 31Monday, October 17, 2011

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Creating a Global E-Commerce Website With E-Business Suite and Fusion Middleware

by Brian Huff

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