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User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to IBM WebSphere Commerce Version 7.0.0.9 and Feautre Pack 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in new editions.
Developing
The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.
Presentation layer
WebSphere Commerce uses Java Server Pages (JSP) to implement the view layer of the Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern. The view layer is in charge of retrieving data from the database through the use of data beans and formatting it to meet the display requirements. The view layers determines whether the request is sent to a browser or streamed out as XML. JSP files present a clean separation between data content and presentation.
WebSphere Commerce integration with WebSphere Portal
You can integrate WebSphere Commerce, a Business Application Service with WebSphere Portal, an Interaction Service. The Interaction Service provides core portal services (WebSphere Portal) that aggregate applications and content and deliver them as role-based applications. The Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) pattern is used for communication, mediation, transformation and integration with external systems. Using an ESB to integrate the Web services exposed from WebSphere Commerce to the WebSphere Portal promotes a loosely coupled design where the ESB manages the interactions styles between the WebSphere Commerce services and the presentation layer. You do not need to alter your presentation layer to support the protocol and format used by the WebSphere Commerce services. Instead, you rely on the ESB to perform tasks such as message transformation and protocol mediation. Neither WebSphere Commerce nor WebSphere Portal needs to change in order to communicate with one another. The ESB is used to act as an interpreter between the two systems and will translate the messages into a format the receiving system understands.
WebSphere Commerce Portal caching
Caching is a technique that when applied properly can improve the overall system response time. It can therefore accelerate your machine to its maximum appropriate utilization while keeping your hardware costs low. That is, caching allows you to do repeatable computer tasks more rapidly.
Enabling existing JSR 168 portlet JSP files for JSP caching
To illustrate the usage of the cache tag on a JSP file, a WebSphere Commerce portlet JSP file is used as an example to demonstrate how you can replace WebSphere Portal's Portlet Caching configuration with this JSP file Caching.

Enabling existing JSR 168 portlet JSP files for JSP caching

To illustrate the usage of the cache tag on a JSP file, a WebSphere Commerce portlet JSP file is used as an example to demonstrate how you can replace WebSphere Portal's Portlet Caching configuration with this JSP file Caching.

Before you begin:

Enable Servlet Caching on your WebSphere Portal server.
Install Cache Monitor to your WebSphere Portal server so that you can have a real time view of the current state of DynaCache.
Install and configure the WebSphere Commerce portlet samples.
Create a sample WebSphere Commerce portal site.

A sample JSP file called ProductDisplay.jsp is used in a WebSphere Commerce MVCPortlet. This JSP file is a portlet JSP file that displays a WebSphere Commerce product in a simple layout where the name, description and an image of the product is found. On this page fragment, there is also a button which represents the submit action of an underlying HTML form for adding the current product item to the user's shopping cart.

WebSphere Commerce - Product details