Presented by Ricardo Merizalde, Software Development Manager, Backcountry.com The intent of this presentation is to describe an implementation of an open source framework for e-commerce sites. The presentation will focus on Oracle ATG but can be extended to other platforms. First, a brief introduction on what CommerceSearch is (an open source integration and framework for eCommerce sites). Review challenges we had with FAST Impulse. Review the main search artifacts merchandisers can manage through CommerceSearch. Review how CommerceSearch integrates with ATG to deploy changes in near real time. Review CommerceSearch integration test framework and automated test framework (Selenium). Finally, summarize the benefits we got by moving from FAST to Solr.

1. Moving from FAST to Solr on ATG
Ricardo Merizalde
Software Development Manager
Backcountry.com

2. Who We Are
§ Online
retailer
of
high-­‐end
outdoor
gear
§ Founded
in
1996
by
former
Olympic
skier
§ 7
Ecommerce
sites
§ Internet
Retailer
Top
100
“We use the gear we sell”

3. More Background
§ Legacy
Perl/Postgres
ecommerce
plaEorm
§ Using
FAST
Impulse/ESP
since
2008
§ Implemented
Oracle/ATG
Commerce
in
2012
§ 1.5MM
daily
search
engine
hits
during
Q4
2012

4. Why change search engines?
§ Product
End
of
Life
§ Index
latency
§ Hardware
footprint
§ License
limitaUons
§ Support
effort
is
high
§ Not
a
good
fit
for
conUnuous
delivery

5. Goals
§ Low
index
latency
§ High
availability
§ Easy
to
scale
§ ConUnuous
delivery
§ Improve
user
experience
§ Improve
merchandising
tools

6. OpenCommerceSearch

7. What’s OpenCommerceSearch?
§ Oracle
ATG/Solr
IntegraUon
§ Search
Module:
Business
Tools
§ Framework
to
ease
development

8. Integration Overview
Each environment has its own collections

9. Search Module
§ Manage
search
assets
• Facets
• Redirects
• Synonym
Lists
&
Synonyms
• Boosts
&
Blocks
• Ranking
Rules
§ Rule
engine
uses
Solr
• Has
its
own
index
(very
small)
• Extra
search
call
to
get
rules
(fast
&
cacheable)

10. Search Module

11. Search Module

12. Search Module
§ Rule’s
context
• Target
Page:
Search,
Category
or
All
Pages
• Query:
shirts,
[the
north
face]
• MulU-­‐site
aware
• Catalog
aware
• Category
aware
§ Rule’s
life
Ume
• Start
&
End
Date

13. Search Module
§ Rule’s
custom
properUes

14. Search Module
§ Ranking
rules
• Boost/demote
chunks
of
products
instead
of
individual
products
• Less
manual
boosUng
• Ideal
state
is
lidle/no
manual
boosUng.
Use
mulUple
data
points
to
automate
ranking
(clicks,
revenue,
etc.)
• Uses
boost
funcUons

15. Search Module

16. Search Module

17. Search Module

18. Search Module
§ Rule
based
categories
• PromoUon
landing
pages
• Keyword
landing
pages
• Price
range,
discount
off,
gender,
hand
pick
products,
etc.

19. Search Module

20. Search Module
§ Asset
MigraUon
• Redirects:
imported
as
exact
matches
• Synonyms:
manual
cleanup
• Boosts
&
Blocks:
not
imported
• Facets:
not
imported
§ Query
Synonyms
• FAST
is
a
black
box
• Analysis
Tool
• Synonym-­‐Expanding
EDisMax
Parser
wriden
by
Nolan
Lawson

21. Who We Are
Index Latency

22. Index Latency
§ Feed
limited
to
XML
feed/exlt
tool
§ Slow
process
with
mulUple
points
of
failure
1. Generate
XML
files
2. scp
XML
files
to
FAST
servers
3. exlt
cronjob
loads
feed
into
SQL
schema
4. JDBC
Connector
checking
for
changes
5. Document
Processing
Pipeline
6. Index
documents

23. Index Latency
§ Index
documents
using
API
calls
§ Different
SLAs
for
change
types
(price,
inventory,
content,
taxonomy)
§ Auto
soj
&
hard
commits
§ Products
&
Skus
are
not
versioned

24. Index Latency

25. Who We Are
ConUnuous
Delivery

26. Continuous Delivery
§ Hard
to
do
integraUon
tesUng
§ Automated
tests
were
flaky
• Data
dependencies
• No
applicaUons
states
§ Leverage
EmbeddedSolrServer
• RAM
index
• Custom
JUnit
Test
Runner
for
IntegraUon
tests
• Solr
XML
for
data
• TestNG
&
Selenium
for
Automated
tests

27. Continuous Delivery
§ IntegraUon
Test
• Shared
core
with
bootstrapped
data
• Clone
core
&
index
test
data
• Test
code
&
server
run
within
same
process

28. Continuous Delivery
§ Automated
Test
• Cores
live
within
applicaUon
server
• Test
data
sent
over
HTTP

29. Continuous Delivery
§ Deployments

30. Continuous Delivery
§ Rundeck
jobs

31. User
Experience

32. User Experience
§ Search
results
not
consistent
with
product
detail
page
§ De-­‐normalize
data
&
index
skus
§ Group
by
product
id

33. User Experience

34. User Experience

35. User Experience
§ Orange
jacket
not
available
in
XXL

36. User Experience

37. User Experience
§ Orange
jacket
available
in
XXL

38. User Experience
§ Grouping
is
awesome
but
is
CPU
intensive
§ Monitor
query
response
Umes
§ Pay
adenUon
to
parUal
match
search
(use
mm
parameter)
§ Use
the
facets
you
really
need

39. User Experience
QuesUons

40. CONTACT
Ricardo Merizalde
rmerizalde@backcountry.com
https://github.com/rmerizalde/opencommercesearch
http://ricardomerizalde.blogspot.com/