COSC 6002R: WebSphere Commerce as SSME Motivating Example

1. COSC 6002R:WebSphere Commerce as SSME Motivating Example Ross McKegney WebSphere Commerce Development IBM Toronto Lab rmckegne@ca.ibm.com York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

2. Objective • Provide an introduction to IBM’s WebSphere Commerce solution • Demonstrate a multi-phase development process, encompassing framework development, customization, and maintenance • Tie-in WebSphere Commerce with Themes of the course York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

3. What is WebSphere Commerce? York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

4. WebSphere Commerce Tools Configurable Business Processes Business Marketing Merchandize & Sell Catalog & Content Collaboration Order Management Business Context Engine Admin Relationships & Agreements Personalization Globalization Analytics Developer IBM Middleware Platform Enables Several Solutions, Provides Hundreds of Processes and Accelerates E-Commerce Implementations B2B Direct Sales Portal Reseller & Distributor Portal SMB Consumer Retail Strategic Sourcing & e-Procurement Supplier Portal SaaS Commerce Digital Media Solutions York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

5. Next Generation Second Generation First Generation Self-Service Internal Integration Relationship Building Channel Integration Integrated Value Chain Ten Years and Three Generations of Commerce Leadership! New Channel Technology Drivers • Web 1.0 • CGI-bin Technology Drivers • DHTML • J2EE Technology Drivers • Web 2.0 • SOA 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 NC V1.0 NC V2.0 NC V3.1 NC V3.2 WC V4.1 WC V5.1 WC V5.4 WC V5.6 WC V5.5 WC V5.6.1 WC V6 York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

6. Some WebSphere Commerce Customers York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

7. Development Process York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

8. Product Releases • Clients enter at any point in the cycle • Fixpacks bundle cumulative fixes for defects detected in the field or internally • We ship three versions of the product: Express, Pro, and Advanced Major Release X+1 … Fixpack n Fixpack 2 Fixpack 1 Major Release X York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

9. Internal Development Process Marketing Solution Spec Solution Spec Solution Spec Prioritized by release Key Clients PrioritizedSolution Spec Line Items Line Item Requires Line Item For each prioritized line item Documentation / Globalization Design System Test Build Accessibility Test Unit Test Backwards Compatibility Test Function Test Globalization Test York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

10. Solution Development • WebSphere Commerce provides a solution framework; an engagement team will build the client solution: • Integration to existing back-end systems • Branding of the product pages • Line of business tooling customizations • Modifications to the provided business processes • The cost of customizations and maintenance is many times the cost of license fees for the base product • In some instances, we will work with the solution team on innovative new features, that will then be rolled into the next version of the product York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

11. Staying in Sync • A large solution can take up to a year of development time to complete • As defects are encountered, the solution team will work with the product support team to resolve the issues, and be given patches as required • Patches are rolled up into fixpacks, that are applied to the client environment periodically York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

12. Upgrading to the next release • Clients periodically refresh their solutions: • To stay on a supported version of the platform • To add new capabilities • The product team follows strict backwards-compatibility guidelines, so that customized client code will continue to work after an upgrade York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

13. Summary of challenges • Clients typically buy solutions from IBM, requiring that we work as one team – even though we are geographically and organizationally distributed • We are constantly adding new capabilities to the platform, while constrained by the significant assets that are built off prior versions • Coordination and information exchange between all parties involved York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

14. WebSphere Commerce and COSC 6002R York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

15. COSC 6002R Topics • Introduction to Services Science, Management and Engineering: Is it real? (2 weeks) • Modeling, analyzing, and optimizing a services business (of your choice) using software tools (specifically WebSphere Business Process Modeler) (3 weeks) • Innovation in services: What new ways of doing business or new business models could be used to enhance your chosen services business? We will look at some interesting case studies as examples. (3 weeks) • Service Oriented Architectures: How are SOA technologies and associated tools helping business people modify the software that implements their business? (2 weeks) York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

16. Topic 1: Introduction to SSME • WebSphere Commerce is representative of most packaged software; sold as a solution bundling Software + Services • Services account for a majority of IBM revenues from Commerce • Development processes must span multiple dev cycle, releases • “Success” is measured by business metrics, not technology metrics York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

17. Topic 2: Process Modeling, Analysis, and Optimization • WebSphere Commerce provides a set of business processes out-of-the-box • E.g. Order management, customer registration, etc. • Business used as a way to articulate the capabilities of the product, and to demonstrate benefits of moving from the client’s as-is process to our provided processes; • Our business processes are then tailored to a client’s specific requirements, and these deltas are one of the inputs to the engagement team York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

18. Topic 3: Innovation in services • There are always new and exciting trends in Retail, consider: • RFID currently at the pallet/case level, but soon will be at the product level (impacts inventory visibility, returns, and allows significant new data mining) • e-Commerce capabilities (e.g. targeted marketing) are starting to appear in-store • Multi-channel retailing is becoming increasingly important York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

19. Topic 4: Service Oriented Architectures • WebSphere Commerce is being re-architected to enable SOA for back-end integration and to offer front-end services • A significant part of what an engagement team would do when building a Commerce solution is to integrate our processes with the client’s existing systems • Today, Commerce processes are hard-wired in Java code. Using SOA, these services can be re-composed much more easily, and the interleaving of human tasks with automated tasks managed graphically York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

20. Backup York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

21. Service orientation in action Supplier Enterprise Web/Store Determine Availability Product Info. Pricing Verify Availability Create Promotion Identify Target Customers Process Order Publish Registry Execute Promotion Process Retail Merchandising Retail Business Intelligence Retail Supply Chain WebSphere Commerce SAP Hardwired connections York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course

22. Catalog Web Retailer Kitchen-Inc Shipper Specialty retailerNeed for flexibility and interaction across multiple channels Multichannel access York University COSC6002R Directed Reading Course