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Abstract
The abstract was not available at the time the proceedings were created. Please check an updated version of the paper abstracts at the conference proceedings web site.
Table of Contents
IVIS Group - Mission Critical XML
Consulting, Technology and Training - based in London
Member of W3C
Using technology to solve business problems
Deliver solutions focusing on
Scalability, Performance and Resilience
Projects
Tesco.com the Largest on-line grocery system in the world
$10 million a week, 2300 orders per hour
1 million customer base
Tesco National Store
XML based architecture
Books, Entertainment, Wine, Gifts
Qusai Sarraf
16 years in IT
IVIS Group CEO
Technical Architect Tesco grocery and National Store
Author of Learning Tree Course 542 Building XML Applications
Trainer, writer and speaker
Practical Steps in Building B2B
XML in B2B Applications
Building B2B Applications
Optimising Features of the Application
Summary
EDI
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) started B2B systems over a decade ago
Minimum penetration
Suffers from the following problems:
Complex to implement
Complex to extend
Expensive to set-up and maintain
Ingredients for Data Exchange
Open data structure
Standard data format
Extensible definition
Standard programming interface
Simple to use, maintain and expand
In a word, or rather TLA, XML
Emergence of Web Services
Many business applications are based on a tightly-coupled design
Changes are expensive
Web Services
New model for creating dynamic distributed applications
Common interfaces for communication across the Internet
Web Services
Programmable application logic
Accessible using standard Internet protocols
HTTP and XML
Combine component-based development and Web technology
Black-box functionality
Accessed by messages,
not object-model-specific protocols
such as DCOM, RMI, or IIOP
Service Requestor
Organisation that needs services of other external companies
Content aggregators
Data portals
Connect to Service Brokers to find a suitable Service Provider
Once found, the Service Requester binds to Service Provider
Service Provider
Provides autonomous services
Exposes Application Programming Interface (API) for the service
Software based
Business based
Service Broker
Registry - White Pages
Collect data about other businesses
Broker - Yellow Pages
Builds on the registry
Extends the value by intelligent searching and categorisation
Aggregator / Gateway - Green Pages
Builds on the Broker capabilities
Describes actual policy and business processes
Requirements for Web Services
A standard way to represent data XML
A common, extensible, message format SOAP
A method to describe services WSDL
A way to discover services UDDI
SOAP - The Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)
Lightweight protocol for information exchange
Defines a set of rules to represent data
Extensible message format
Representing remote procedure calls RPC over HTTP
W3C working draft
WSDL - www.w3.org/TR/wsdl
WSDL Web Services Description Language
XML format for describing network services
Describes interfaces for communication
Describes what a web service can do, where it resides, and how to invoke it
Formulated by Microsoft, IBM and Ariba and is currently being considered by the W3C
XML-based contract language
UDDI - www.uddi.org
The Universal Description, Discovery and Integration Project (UDDI)
Standard registry for companies
Focused particularly on middleware connectivity
Uses XML to 'describe' the systems that companies use to interface with one another
The Challenge
Largest on-line grocery retailer in the world, to expand to non-food markets with the objectives:
Diversify product range
Personalise offering
Maintain customer management
Roll out 'many' virtual stores
Expansion must not disrupt current systems
Time to market is crucial
Building B2B Applications
The following architecture is based on the IVIS e-framework used at Tesco.com
Nine virtual stores launched between October 1999 and May 2001
Books, Entertainment, Wine, Gifts, Electrical, Mother & Baby, Flowers, Home Living and Fashion
The Retailer
Maintains brand
Interacts with customers
Process payments
Acts as the central hub for the communication
Data Providers
Provide data
Present catalogues in various views
Provide run-time services to the retailer
Receive the request for the data in XML
Respond with the data in XML
Order Fulfillers
Dispatch orders
Receive purchase order requests in XML
Send order status updates to retailer in XML
Send stock information to data provider
Send sales history to data provider for ranking
The National Store Features
Stateless
XML messaging
Caching management
Distributed transactions
Asynchronous processing
XML contract between business partners
XSL styling in presentation layer
Interface-based programming
Cache Management
XML data returned from the Data Provider was transformed to HTML
HTML is cached before sending it to the client
80% of the hits are on 20% of the products
Good cache hit ratio
Cache is destroyed on nightly basis
In this presentation we
Introduced the role of XML in B2B applications
Outlined the steps in building B2B applications
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Design & Development by deepX Ltd. 2002 |
