This series in about the Entrepreneurial and E-Commerce opportunities and how to harness the power of Information Technology to improve or revolutionize business. This session initially discusses about: the internet today, the internet backbone, ISPs, metropolitan area exchange, network access points, intranet and extranet. Then the big topic starts! How to build an commerce site. It includes all the necessary steps to consider, plan, build, and deploy an commerce website including build e-commerce site, planning e-commerce site, in-house vs outsourcing, technologies, server technologies, merchant applications, etc.

1. Entrepreneurship &
Commerce in IT
10
Sachintha Gunasena MBCS
http://lk.linkedin.com/in/sachinthadtg

2. Recap so far…

3. Last Week’s Discussion
• The Internet and World Wide Web
• Evolution of the Internet
• Key Technology Concepts of the Internet
• Internet Protocols
• Email
• FTP
• Telnet
• Ping
• Tracert

4. Today…

5. Today’s Discussion
• The Internet Today
• Building an E-Commerce Website

6. The Internet Today

7. The Internet Backbone
• principal data routes between large, strategically
interconnected networks and core routers on the Internet
• a very high-speed data transmission line that provides networking
facilities to relatively small but high-speed Internet Service
Providers all around the world.
• require high-speed bandwidth connections and high-performance
servers/routers.
• Backbone networks are primarily owned by commercial,
educational, government and military entities because they
provide a consistent way for Internet service providers (ISPs) to
keep and maintain online information in a secure manner.

8. The Internet Backbone
Cont.d
Internet
Home
ISP
NAP/IXP
(Network Access
Point/ Internet
eXchange Point)
Business
PC1 PC2 PC3PC
POP
(Point of Presence)
Router
Modem/
Router
Backbone
T1 LinePhone
/ DSL
/ Cable Modem
T3 Line

9. The Internet Backbone
Cont.d
• Internet
• a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to
link several billion devices worldwide
• NAP
• a public network exchange facility where Internet service providers (ISPs) connected with one another
in peering arrangements (old)
• IXP - Internet eXchange Point
• a physical infrastructure through which ISPs and CDNs exchange Internet traffic between their
networks (new)
• ISP
• an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet
• POP - Point of Presence
• an access point to the Internet

10. The Internet Backbone
Cont.d
• first packet-switched computer network was the ARPANET.
• It used a backbone of routers called Interface Message Processors
• National Science Foundation created NSFNET in 1986 by funding six networking
sites using 56kbit/s interconnecting links and peering to the ARPANET
• In 1987, this new network was upgraded to 1.5Mbit/s T1 links for thirteen sites.
• IBM, MCI and Merit upgraded the backbone to 45Mbit/s bandwidth (T3) in 1991
• combination of the ARPANET and NSFNET became known as the Internet.
• dominance of the NSFNet backbone became dominant
• redundant ARPANET infrastructure was decommissioned in 1990.

11. The Internet Backbone
Cont.d
• The Internet backbone is a conglomeration of multiple, redundant networks owned by numerous
companies. It is typically a fiber optic trunk line.
• The trunk line consists of many fiber optic cables bundled together to increase the capacity.
• The backbone is able to reroute traffic in case of a failure.
• The data speeds of backbone lines have changed with the times.
• In 1998, all of the United States backbone networks had utilized the slowest data rate of 45
Mbit/s.
• However the changing technologies allowed for 41 percent of backbones to have data rates of
2,488 Mbit/s or faster by the mid 2000s.
• Fiber-optic cables are the medium of choice for Internet backbone providers for many reasons.
• Fiber-optics allow for fast data speeds and large bandwidth; they suffer relatively little attenuation,
allowing them to cover long distances with few repeaters; they are also immune to crosstalk and
other forms of electromagnetic interference which plague electrical transmission.

12. Building an E-
Commerce Website

13. Website Design Lifecycle
• Planning
• System Analysis
• System Design
• Building the System
• Testing
• Implementation

14. Planning
• Planning an e-commerce web site is essential for
business.
• the complexities of running an online business
can be the reason for not planning a site
• a website is a business’s window to the world
• can be the difference between having a
successful online presence or not.

15. things to remember
• The e-commerce website is not for you, it must meet the expectations
and needs of your customers/clients.
• An e-commerce website is
• a flexible,
• extensible
• communications instrument that reflects,
• positively
• or negatively,
• on the business.

16. E-Commerce
Website Design
Objectives

17. Primary Objective
• To establish and promote your businesses credibility.
• To increase exposure.
• To describe your products or services.
• To offer online transactions, purchasing (e-commerce) or information on
how to buy products and services.
• To provide customer service and/or support.
• To communicate business identity or branding.
• To decrease print and sending costs.
• To compete with competitors.

18. Secondary Objectives
• To make your e-commerce website search engine friendly.
• To generate repeat visitors and/or custom.
• To encourage visitors to recommend the website to others.
• To create an online community.
• To offer a newsletter or members section.
• To encourage visitors to stay and visit parts of the site.

19. Website Design

20. Design Guidelines
• Target Audience
• Website Design : Look & Feel
• Logo & Branding
• Content
• Web Pages
• Search Engine Optimisation & Promotion
• Site Technical Details
• Project Timeline
• Unanswered Questions

21. Target Audience
• Who is your target audience?
• What is your target audience looking for?
• Will people find you by search engines or will you provide
them with your domain name via printed material and/or
emails and/or social networks?
• What questions are your customers and/or clients always
asking you?
• What can you offer your customers and/or clients that
would save them time?

22. Site Design: Look & Feel
• Look at other websites to gather ideas of what you would like on your website.
• Which features and layout styles do you like best and feel that your business will
benefit?
• Do you need to decide on a colour scheme or overall theme?
• What kind of image do you want your website to portray for your business?
• Navigation and Menus – Single, Multiple, Dropdowns?
• Graphics and Photographs - Do you have electronic or favoured choices or are you
looking to find royalty free stock or custom photos?
• Are you interested in animation graphics or videos for the website?
• Do you need to take photos of you, your staff, your services, or your products?
• Do you have any vendor supplied photos or graphics you are authorized to use?

23. Logo & Branding
• Do you have a logo for your business?
• Do you have a high resolution digital copy of it?
• Do you need a logo or would a stylized text of your business
name be sufficient?
• Do you need to design and develop a brand image and logo for
your business?
• If yes, how would you describe your business in one sentence?
• Do you have an idea for the logo in mind

24. Content
• Do you have existing written material which can be used?
• If not, put together the content required or have a good indication to what you require so that you may either
• request copywriting services
• use the content management facility to insert the content
• Do you have information in electronic format which can be used? For example,
• Brochures
• Presentations
• Flyers
• Case studies
• Testimonials
• Business timeline history
• Previous or current website (if any)

25. Web Pages
• Home
• Our Services
• Our Products
• About Us
• Why Choose Us
• Testimonials
• Frequently Asked Questions (also known as FAQ’s)
• Discussion Forum
• Documents / Downloads
• Our Blog
• Members Area
• Links or resources
• Make a booking
• Contact us
• Other (specific to your business)

26. Search Engine Optimisation
& Promotion
• How will people find you: by name, keywords, products, services,
etc.
• Resource linking: if you don’t offer it, who does? Would you like to
link to them?
• Keyword orientated content and web page names
• Ensure you research your keywords and/or request keyword
research to ensure the best use of keywords in accordance to your
specific industry and competitor analysis.
• Monitor your websites ranking in the various major search engines
frequently and modify your website as often as possible based on
your discoveries.

27. Site Technical Details
• Have you registered a domain name?
• If not, what are the options that work for you?
• Hosting Plans: do you already have adequate hosting?
• If not, what are the options that work for you?
• Do you have your control panel access information for domains and
hosting if already acquired?
• Do you have the expertise to carry out maintenance on your website
should your website face any technical difficulty?
• If not, what are the options that work for you?

28. Project Timeline
• What is your deadline for the website?
• Beginning when
• finishing when?
• Is your launch date tied to a product or service that
you are introducing?
• Is your business dependant on seasonal, social or
financial timeframes?

29. Unanswered Questions
• If you are left with questions after going through
the checklist, have you made a note of them so
that you can discuss them with an expert?
• If not, you should do so as it may prove vital in
obtaining a website designed and developed with
the right content & features for your target
audience.

30. System Analysis

31. Systems Analysis
• Business Objectives
• list of capabilities that should be in the site
• System Functionalities
• list of information system capabilities needed to achieve
business objectives
• Information Requirements
• information elements that the system should produce in
order to achieve business objectives

32. BUSINESS OBJECTIVES, SYSTEM
FUNCTIONALITY, AND INFORMATION
REQUIREMENTS FOR A TYPICAL E-COMMERCE
SITE
Business Objective System Functionality Information Requirements
Display products Digital catalog Dynamic text & graphic catalog
Provide product information Product database
product description, stocking
numbers, inventory levels,
Personalize/customize product Customer on-site tracking
Site log for every customer visit;
data mining capability to identify
common customer paths and
appropriate responses
Execute a transaction Shopping cart/payment system
Secure credit card clearing; multiple
payment options
Accumulate customer information Customer database
Name, address, phone, and e-mail
for all customers; online customer
registration

33. BUSINESS OBJECTIVES, SYSTEM
FUNCTIONALITY, AND INFORMATION
REQUIREMENTS FOR A TYPICAL E-COMMERCE
SITE
Business Objective System Functionality Information Requirements
Provide after-sale customer support Sales database
Customer ID, product, date,
payment, shipment date
Coordinate marketing/advertising
program
Ad server, e-mail server, e-mail
campaign manager, ad banner
manager
Site behavior log of prospects and
customers linked to e-mail and
banner ad campaigns
Understand marketing effectiveness Site tracking and reporting system
Number of unique visitors, pages
visited, products purchased,
identified by marketing campaign
Provide production and supplier
links
Inventory management system
Product and inventory levels,
supplier ID and contact, order
quantity data by product

34. System Design

35. Hardware & Software
Platforms
• System design specification
• describe the main components of the system and their relationship to one
another
• System Design Components
• Logical Design
• dataflow diagrams
• processing functions
• databases
• Physical Design
• specifies actual physical, software components, models, etc.

36. Logical Design
Site
Customer
Verify
Login
Ship
Products
Purchase
Products
Display
Catalog
Pages
Customer
DB
Catalog DB
Order DB
HTTP Request Customer Information
Accept/Reject
Visitor
Fullfil Order
Order
Shipped
Confirmation

37. Physical Design
Customer’s
Device
E-Commerce
Suite
Website
HostingInternet
Ad Server
SQL DB
Shopping Cart
Online Catalog
Mail Server
Web Server
HDD
Bandwidth
T1
highspeed
internet
connection
cable
dsl
t1

38. Building the System

39. In-house vs. Outsourcing
• requires team with diverse skill set;
• choice of software tools;
• both risks
• and possible benefits

40. Hosting the System

41. In-house vs. Outsourcing
• Hosting
• hosting company responsible for ensuring site
is accessible 24/7, for monthly fee
• Co-location
• firm purchases or leases Web server (with
control over its operation), but server is located
at vendor’s facility

42. System Testing
• Unit testing
• individual units of source code, sets of one or more computer
program modules together with associated control data, usage
procedures, and operating procedures, are tested to determine
whether they are fit for use
• System testing
• testing conducted on a complete, integrated system to evaluate the
system's compliance with its specified requirements
• Acceptance testing
• determine if the requirements of a specification or contract are met

43. Implementation and
Maintenance
• Maintenance is ongoing
• Maintenance costs: parallel to development costs
• Benchmarking
• the process of comparing one's business
processes and performance metrics to industry
bests or best practices from other companies

44. Website Optimization Factors
• Page Generation
• server response time
• device based accelerators
• efficient resource allocation
• resource utilisation thresholds
• monitoring site performance

45. Website Optimization Factors
• Page Delivery
• content delivery networks
• edge caching
• bandwidth

46. Website Optimization Factors
• Page Content
• optimize HTML
• optimize images
• site structure
• efficient page style

47. Choosing Server Software
• System Architecture
• Arrangement of software, machinery, and tasks in an
information system needed to achieve a specific functionality
• Two-Tier
• Web server and database server
• Multi-Tier
• Web application servers
• Backend, legacy databases

48. Two-Tier
web
serveruser
dynamic
database

49. Multi-Tier
Web Server Layer
Backend Layer
Middle-tier Layer
Web Servers
E-Commerce Servers
Application Servers
Database Servers
Ad Servers
Mail Servers
Corporate Applications
Finance
Production MRP
Enterprise Systems
HR Systems
incoming internet requests

50. Choosing Server Software
• Apache
• Leading Web server software
• Works with UNIX, Linux operating systems
• Microsoft’sInternetInformationServer(IIS)
• Second major Web server software
• Windows-based

51. Functionality of Web Servers
Functionality Description
Processing HTTP requests
Receive and respond to client requests for HTML
pages
Security Services (SSL)
Verify username & password; process certificates and
private/public key information for credit card processing
FTP Transfer very large files from server to server
Search Engine
Indexing of site content; keyword search
capability
Data Capture Log file of all visits, time, duration, referral source
E-Mail send, receive, store emails
Site Management Tools statistics, check links, etc

52. Site Management Tools
• Basic Tools
• Included in all Web servers
• Verify that links on pages are still valid
• Identify orphan files
• Third-party software and services for advanced site management
• Monitor customer purchases, marketing campaign effectiveness,
etc.
• E.g. Google Analytics

53. Dynamic Page Generation
Tools
• Dynamic page generation
• contents of web pages are stored as objects in the database and fetched when needed
• Common Tools
• CGI, ASP, JSP, ODBC, JDBC
• Advantages
• lowers menu costs (cost of changing prices)
• permits easy online market segmenting
• enable cost-free discrimination
• identical or largely similar goods or services are transacted at different prices by the same
provider in different markets
• enables content management systems (CMS)

54. Application Servers
• Web Application Servers
• Provide specific business functionality required for a Web
site
• Type of middleware
• Isolate business applications from Web servers and
databases
• Single-function applications increasingly being replaced by
integrated software tools that combine all functionality
needed for eCommerce site

55. Application Servers
Functionality
Application Server Functionality
Catalog display
provides a db for product descriptions and
prices
Transaction Processing (
Shopping Cart)
accepts orders and clears payments
List Server
creates and serves email lists, manages
online marketing campaigns
Proxy Server
monitor and control access to main web
server, firewall
Mail Server manages internet email
Audio/Video Server stores and delivers media content
Chat Server
creates an environment for online text and
audio interactions with customers

56. Application Servers
Functionality Cont.d
Application Server Functionality
News Server
provides connectivity and displays internet
news feeds
Fax Server fax reception and sending via web server
Groupware Server
create workgroup environments for online
collaboration
Database Server store customer, product, price information
Ad Server
maintains web-enabled DB of advertising banners that permits
customised targeted ads based on consumer behaviour
Auction Server
provides transaction environment for
online auctions
B2B Server
implements buy, sell and link
marketplaces for commercial transactions

57. E-Commerce Merchant
Server Software Functionality
• Provides basic functionality for online sales
• Online Catalog
• List of products available on Web site
• Shopping cart
• Allows shoppers to set aside, review, edit selections, and then make
purchase
• Credit card processing
• Typically works in conjunction with shopping cart
• Verifies card and puts through credit to company’s account at checkout

58. Merchant Server Software
Packages
• Integrated environment with most or all of functionality needed
• Key factors in selecting a package
• Functionality
• Support for different business models
• Business process modeling tools
• Visual site management and reporting
• Performance and scalability
• Connectivity to existing business systems
• Compliance with standards
• Global and multicultural capability
• Local sales tax and shipping rules

59. Choosing the Right Hardware
for Your E-Commerce Site
• Hardware Platform
• underlying computing equipment that uses to
achieve eCommerce functionality
• Objective
• enough platform capacity to meet peak demand
without wasting money
• Important to understand the different factors that affect
speed, capacity, and scalability of a site

60. Right-Sizing Your Hardware
Platform
• Customer Demand
• most important factor affecting speed
• Factors in overall demand
• number of simultaneous users in peak periods
• nature of customer requests (user profile)
• type of content (dynamic vs. static web pages)
• required security
• number of items in inventory
• number of page requests
• speed of legacy applications

61. Right-Sizing Your Hardware
Platform Cont.d
• Scalability
• ability of the site to increase in size as needed
• Ways to scale hardware
• Vertically
• increase processing power of individual components
• Horizontally
• employ multiple computers to share workload
• Improve Processing architecture

62. Right-Sizing Your Hardware
Platform Cont.d
• Will share some notes later.

63. Other E-Commerce Site
Development Tools
• Website Design: Basic business considerations
• enabling customers search and buy what they need
• Tools for website optimisation
• Search Engine Placement
• meta tags, page titles, content
• identify market niches, localise site
• expertise
• links
• search engine ads (SEM)
• local e-commerce

64. Personalization Tools
• Personalisation
• ability to treat people based on personal preferences
and prior history with site
• Customisation
• ability to change product to better fit to an individual
customers needs
• Cookies
• primary method to achieve personalization

65. Case Studies

66. System Analysis: Case Study
1
• Requirement:
• E-Commerce site to enable members to buy and sell Portals/Domains
• A robust but user-friendly site was what the customer desired.
• Analysis:
• A site of this concept would attract advanced and frequent visitors.
• User’s sole intentions to benefit from the deals are to be assured by
securing the site well.
• This should however not be a very restrictive site considering the
growth potential.

67. System Analysis: Case Study
1 Cont.d
• Design:
• Restrict Buy/Sell activities to members only.
• Take a Legally binding agreement signed by members who want to put up ads as well as
Buy
• Extensive usage of Client-side scripting to guide users at all point.
• Database incorporating best of RDBMS concepts with Referential integrity among various
tables.
• Enable Session state and identify user at all stages and give a definite time to make page
unavailable after that time.
• Use Site-Map to allow target browsing, by advanced users.
• Check the Domain names with an Admin and allow listing.
• Usage of E-Mail components to inform user of developments.

68. System Analysis: Case Study
2
• Requirement:
• Develop an Educational web site which will cater to the needs of students in
the age group of 6 –17.
• To make user-friendly interfaces and implement sturdy system to with stand
errors by ignorant users.
• Solution: key areas to focus.
• Understanding existing system of teaching and possible modification.
• Content Designing and allow Automatic Updating
• Selection of Web Technology and Application Development.
• Cost benefit analysis, for site owner and users as well

69. System Analysis: Case Study
2 Cont.d
• Design:
• Develop and deploy database of MS SQL Server.
• Proper management of table spaces, Segments, Buffers and security options.
• Develop Administration tool using ASP technology for uploading and manipulating
content in site.
• Studying & developing site module wise like registration, Content Management,
Questions module, Admin and Tutor module
• Develop Credit card processing system.
• Modularity with the help of ActiveX Custom Component for data retrievals.
• Allow Index searching system
• A sturdy chat-server system to enhance interactivity among students and teachers.

70. Next Up…
• Security and Encryption

71. References
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_backbone
• http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/225961
• https://www.geotrust.com/resources/guides/creating-ecommerce-
website.pdf
• http://e-commercewebsitedesign.me.uk/planning-an-e-commerce-
website/
• http://gantecusa.com/case9.htm
• http://www.prenhall.com/behindthebook/0132240858/pdf/Kendall_Featu
re1_Why_We_Wrote_This_Book.pdf
• http://www.rhicsstudios.com/e-commerce-development-report.pdf

72. Thank you.
Sachintha Gunasena MBCS
http://lk.linkedin.com/in/sachinthadtg