Microsoft .NET Server Solutions for the Enterprise

Commerce Server Web Site

The Commerce Server Web site, on the right side of the figure at the beginning of this overview, is the retail Web site itself. In general, this Web site uses the Active Server Pages (ASP) technology provided by Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (IIS) to create a Web site that runs the bulk of its code on the Web server so that there are fewer dependencies on the browser being used.

Building this Web site so that it is functional, convenient, and smart is the ultimate purpose of using Commerce Server in the first place. This Web site might begin from a number of different sources, as follows:

• Commerce Server 2002 .NET Sample Site, found in the product SDK.
• Commerce Server 2000 Retail Solution Site, which is located on the Commerce Server 2002 CD, and can be downloaded from the Commerce Server Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/commerceserver.
• Written from scratch, using Commerce Server functionality, as appropriate. Setting up such an instance of the Commerce Server Business Desk application is actually done by installing something called the blank site. It provides Business Desk and an empty Web page called default.asp.
• An existing Web site modified to incorporate one or more features of Commerce Server.

In any event, this is where the Web site developers are likely to expend the bulk of their efforts, writing ASP script code to implement the Web site.

As the end result and ultimate purpose of Commerce Server, the Commerce Server retail Web site is of interest to all of the relevant participants, both shoppers and the various types of shopkeepers. Shoppers use the site, site developers create the site, site administrators deploy and maintain the site, and business managers run the site.