Information systems slide technical aspects of e commerce part 1

Technical Aspects of E-Commerce Part of Mort Anvari Introduction - Overview of Sample Network - Definitions - Transaction Walk Through - The E-Commerce Application - Web Servers - Operating Systems - Hardware Sample Network PC Web Server PC Internet R SQL Server PC FW PC Mail Server File Server PC PC Architecture CGI Script User Space Web Server Software Operating System Space System I/O Layer Motherboard Physical World HD Controller Hard Drive Data HTML Pages Video Card Network Card Hardware Definitions Scalability - The ability of a product to work well as it or it’s environment is changed in size or power Reliability - The ability of product to continue working in adverse situations or with bad data TCO - Total Cost of Ownership How much a product costs over it’s life span Definitions Manageability - The ease with which a product can be maintained Also, the degree of control allowed by the vendor User Friendliness - The ease with which and untrained person can use a product Security - The ability of a product to protect itself from malicious attack Example Transaction In our example, the user wants to get their bank statement for the month as well as their bank balances This is representative of small to medium size e-commerce sites Larger sites use much of the same components, but more powerful or in larger quantities Example Transaction Client makes request to Web Server PC Web Server PC Internet R SQL Server PC FW PC Mail Server File Server PC PC Example Transaction Web server fetches HTML page containing a form from the hard drive CGI Script User Space Web Server Operating System Space System I/O Layer Motherboard Physical World Data HTML Pages Video Card Network Card Example Transaction Server sends page to client PC Web Server PC Internet R SQL Server PC FW PC Mail Server File Server PC PC 10 User Friendliness Chart Macintosh Windows 95 Windows NT Linux Unix 100 60 55 45 20 66 Price Chart Linux Windows 95 Windows NT Unix 95 65 35 10 67 Best Uses of Each OS Windows 95 - Games - Word Processing - Not a serious OS Windows NT - Low to medium traffic - Be very careful with E-Commerce - Best for low-tech firms 68 Best Uses of Each OS Unix - Low, medium and high traffic - E-Commerce capable - Best for mega-sites Linux - Low, medium and high traffic - E-Commerce capable - Good for all uses 69 Hardware What is it? - The physical components of a computing system - If it can be held in your hand it’s hardware - If it can’t it’s software 70 Hardware CGI Script User Space Web Server Software Operating System Space System I/O Layer Motherboard Physical World HD Controller Hard Drive Data HTML Pages Video Card Network Card Hardware 71 Hardware - Architecture - Hard Drives - Backup Systems - Network Interfaces - RAM 72 Architecture - CISC (Complex Instruction Set Comp.) Can complex operations Can many functions i.e 486, Pentium, PowerPC - RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Comp.) Can a few simple operations Faster than CISC i.e SPARC, HP9000 73 Hard Drives - Single A regular hard drive - Mirrored Fault-Tolerant Expensive - Drive Array Fault-Tolerant Slower but cheaper than Mirror 74 Hard Drives - Highly Redundant Drive Enclosure External to server Can lose multiple drives Very fast Very expensive 75 Backup Systems - DAT (Digital Audio Tape) Fast, efficient and reliable Tape sizes from 2-24GB Backwards compatible - DLT (Digital Linear Tape) Very fast, reliability problems Tapes can hold up to 70GB New technology 76 Backup Systems - Tape Library Uses multiple DLTs or DATs Uses many tapes Robotic arm changes tapes 77 Network Interfaces - LAN (Local Area Network) Small in geographic size Fast and cheap Owned - WAN (Wide Area Network) Connects distant LANs Slow and expensive Rented 78 Random Access Memory - Regular Garden variety memory - Parity Checks for memory errors Stops machine on error - ECC (Error Checking and Correcting) Checks for memory errors Corrects errors 79 Next Time PC Web Server PC Internet R SQL Server PC FW PC Mail Server File Server PC PC 80 ... script The name of the script to be executed is embedded in the form PC Web Server PC Internet R SQL Server PC FW PC Mail Server File Server PC PC 12 Example Transaction Web server executes CGI... button PC Web Server PC Internet R SQL Server PC FW PC Mail Server File Server PC PC 11 Example Transaction Browser sends contents of form to web server requesting that it be passed to a specific... sites Larger sites use much of the same components, but more powerful or in larger quantities Example Transaction Client makes request to Web Server PC Web Server PC Internet R SQL Server PC FW