Review: Microsoft's Commerce Server 2002

The newest version of Microsoft's Commerce Server deserves a serious evaluation by anyone developing a high-performance Commerce website.  Delivered using the .NET platform, Commerce Server 2002 (MSCS) is robust, scalable (tested with millions of products and tens of millions of users when deployed in a web farm), flexible and reliable. This product has matured nicely and Microsoft's experience with large-scale implementations such as Dell.com (selling $50 million per day on the Internet), RadioShack.com and BarnesandNoble.com is evident in the latest release.  InformationWeek regards it as "up there with some of the best products in the market" including BEA Systems, IBM and Oracle.

Is Commerce Server 2002 for you?

Microsoft has moved this product up the food chain. The target for MSCS is no longer the small business that wants a simple order-taking site for $10,000 or less.  The MSCS list price is now $7,000 to $20,000 per processor (upgrade discounts are available until July 31).  While a number of useful starter sites are included with the product, you will probably need to tailor or customize one of them, or create your own site.  In either case, customization is now a programming task for someone with Visual Basic or C# (C-Sharp) expertise. It requires a higher level of programming skill than the earlier versions which relied on HTML and VBScript.  So expect your total investment to be some multiple of the list price when you include hardware and custom development. 

There are a wealth of very sophisticated features in the product.  This is the 5th version of the product released by Microsoft (versions 1 and 2 were called "Merchant Server", version 3 was dubbed "Site Server Commerce Edition", and version 4 was "Commerce Server 2000").  Microsoft has added and extended features based on market requirements and the new Commerce Server 2002 offers very capable solutions for both the Business-to-Consumer (B2C) and Business-to-Business (B2B) markets. 

If you're looking for a smaller, less expensive solution, you might want to check out previous Web Commerce Today reviews, such as "Quick Look: Shopping Cart/Store-Building Programs," Issue 47, June 15, 2001.

.NET and Commerce Server 2002

The most significant change is the port to .NET.  Now developers can simply add various MSCS classes into their .NET applications and use the rich features of the product.  Visual Studio's IntelliSense will prompt you with all of the properties and methods of an object that you're working with -- all very cool.  So it's much easier to develop B2B and B2C applications (for the .NET developer). 

Microsoft's .NET is a new software platform that, for the first time, allows developers to use software programs or modules that have been developed in different languages (C++, Visual Basic, C#, and others) all within one program. So I, as a Visual Basic developer, can use in my VB program Microsoft and other vendor's programs that were written in C++ and C#.  Developer productivity goes way up. The breadth and richness of software applications can expand rapidly.  The move to .NET greatly improves the extensibility and breadth of applications possible for MSCS.

Improvements in Commerce Server 2002

The second significant improvement is the globalization of the product.  MSCS now provides comprehensive multi-lingual and multi-currency capabilities, including product catalogs and marketing campaigns, user profiles and even back-office reporting using the sophisticated Business Analytics System (multi-dimensional cubes for pivot-table type analysis).

Another important area that has been enhanced is B2B support.  You can import multiple product catalogs (XML or CSV format) from suppliers or from your internal ERP system, and then create virtual catalogs (sets of rules that apply to base catalogs) to provide sub-sets of products or currency conversions, for example.  MSCS can use Microsoft's BizTalk Server to provide integration with a wide variety of external systems -- ERP, Financials, Suppliers, EDI, and other legacy systems.  Typical integration scenarios include importing product catalogs, updating product prices, exporting orders, and updating order shipment status.  BizTalk provides the transaction processor. (Similar to an EDI application, it is used to map data from one system format to another and to reliably exchange transactions with multiple systems.)

Profiling Users

The Business Desk is used to define user profiles.  Profiles define the data that you want to track for each user and where is it stored.  You can combine data from MS Active Directory, Exchange Server and SQL Server tables into a single profile.  Designing your profiles properly is important because they need to support your targeted marketing scenarios.  Profile information can be automatically loaded based on rules you define using Business Analytics -- the system can "infer" profile properties based on shopping behavior.  Use dynamic profiles to extend your profiles as you learn more about your customers.

Personalization and Targeted Merchandising

Commerce Server 2002 uses the profiling system to identify each shopper, track their activity in the site and their purchases, and to develop target profile groups for shoppers with similar interests.  The targeting system then allows the merchant to create specific marketing campaigns for delivery to each target group.  For example, if your site sells clothing and accessories, you could develop a target profile of shoppers who looked at shorts, and then market swim suits to them on various pages of the site or using e-mail.  While this feature is powerful and sophisticated, you need to build a significant database of shopper activity before it will be useful to you.

Customize the Shopping Experience

You can build your Commerce Server site to your own design specifications, however you may want to start with one of the starter sites and modify it.  You have many choices to make in defining the shopping or buying experience.  The retail starter sites offer a simple, no-frills shopping experience. The Retail2002 International site offers a complex global version.  The basic retail site provides the ability to browse and search a product catalog, load a shopping basket, calculate shipping and tax, and payment by credit card.  The International site includes the Adventure Works catalog and supports English, Spanish, French, German and Japanese, with product graphics, language-sensitive catalog searches, and split-order shipping (drop shipping from multiple suppliers). 

You will need to design your site with MSCS capabilities in mind. Determine which features you want to use and understand how they work, then design them into the appropriate pages of your site.  For example, a shopper could have multiple addresses and/or multiple credit cards. Do you want to store them for future use?  For a B2B site you may provide the ability to invoice customers directly.  How will you handle security to ensure that only authorized shoppers can order on account?  Even if you have an existing Commerce site that you want to convert to Commerce Server 2002, include some time in your plan for designing your site and incorporating the appropriate MSCS tools.  It will be time well spent.

Site Management

The MSCS Business Desk is a website for your business managers to use to manage the site and update information in the site.  MSCS is a dynamic system; all the information is stored in a database.  You update the database and change the site using the Business Desk.  For example, you can define new catalogs and new catalog schemas. Maybe you sell books and clothes, which require very different data. That's easy because you simply define a catalog schema for each with exactly the data you need.  You can import catalogs (CSV or XML), edit product information, translate text to multiple languages, and publish catalogs to the site. 

The Business Desk not only allows you to maintain business rules and products, you can also view specific shoppers, order history and create marketing campaigns.

Business Analytics

Business Analytics is a component of MSCS that uses the OLAP capabilities of SQL Server to provide a rich analysis and reporting system.  You can design the specific data to import into the data warehouse, combining information from web logs, shopper profiles, product catalogs and order history.  Many out-of-the-box pivot-table analytic reports come with the package and you can, of course, modify them and add your own.  This is a great approach to delivering the advanced analytical reporting required of high-traffic eCommerce sites.

Security

Microsoft has dramatically closed the gap in terms of Internet security for both the Internet Information Server (IIS) and MSCS. However, be aware that it's your responsibility to find and follow their prescribed Best Practices for security.  You should lock down your web server before installing MSCS. In addition, MSCS implements many security precautions during the installation.  Various user roles are established to provide a high degree of security for your staff when using the Business Desk or Business Analytics, for example.

Order Pipeline Components

One of the strengths of MSCS is the ability to add your own business rules for order processing using the Pipeline editor.  A Pipeline is simply a series of components that process the order and order lines to apply business rules, including the calculation of discounts and prices, taxes and shipping, promotions and rebates, and so on.  Typically the bane of order processing systems, these business rules are easily accommodated through a combination of third-party components and custom pipeline components.

Third-party Add-in Components

For complex, multi-state or multi-national tax calculations you may need an additional tax component from a company such as TaxWare or CyberSource.  Several add-ins are available to support credit card processing including ClearCommerce, CyberSource and others.  Complex shipping calculations can be handled by TanData and there's even a CRM add-in by SalesLogix.

Developer, Standard or Enterprise Edition?

Start by downloading the Evaluation Edition and try it out for 120 days for free!  Then purchase a Developer Edition (included in a MSDN Universal Subscription) for developing your site (one license covers two computers).  Then purchase the Standard Edition (at $7,000 per processor) if you don't need extensive Business Analytics, or the Enterprise Edition  ($20,000 per processor) if you want everything.  A Microsoft comparison chart can help you select the proper version.

Newsgroups

Check out the Microsoft Newsgroups (microsoft.public.commerceserver.*) to see what kinds of problems developers are having with the product.  Currently it appears that Microsoft is very active in supporting MSCS users via their newsgroups and that the code is relatively clean.  It would be natural to expect a Service Pack release this fall to address the initial software bugs.

Summary

The current version has some excellent examples of starter stores. But the best approach is not to modify these starter sites. You view the examples, study their techniques, and the build your own. Since the whole system has become so complex and has so many more features than it used to, its best to use Microsoft's components and start modifications from scratch.

On reflection, the product is excellent, but it has become so monolithic and bulky that in some ways it's more difficult to use. Perhaps a more streamlined product with add-ons might be easier to work with.

Commerce Server 2002 is a relatively high-end commerce platform for both B2C and B2B.  Porting to .NET adds a lot of value for developers -- and, on the flip side, it now requires serious programming talent to customize it to your business needs.  As compared to developing a complex eCommerce system from scratch, you get tremendous value by starting with a rich platform of tools.  But expect to spend $20,000 to $100,000 or more in customization, in addition to the hardware and software costs.