WebSphere Commerce shopping flow URLs are organized by subsystem.
WebSphere Commerce exposes two main programming APIs. The first and newest API is a REST interface, and most new classes are exposed here. The legacy Java API also contains new classes not suitable for REST, and can be browsed in Javadoc format.
Data beans are grouped into several component groups.
URL commands, controller commands, task commands, view commands and tables are related to each other.
Use this information when you are customizing a command and you want to know which tables are affected. You should also use this topic if you are modifying a table and want to know which commands and beans are affected.
If you are migrating version 7.0 of WebSphere Commerce, review the API changes between releases.
The WebSphere Commerce database model was designed for data integrity and optimal performance. WebSphere Commerce provides several hundred tables that store WebSphere Commerce instance data. To maintain data integrity, and to ease maintenance referential integrity, constraints are widely used in the database model. Indexes are used carefully on tables to avoid over-indexing and to provide a good balance between data retrieval and data manipulation activities (insert and update). The business rules are implemented at the application level rather than by using database trigger. Triggers, however, are used to facilitate data staging and optimistic locking. A limited number of SQL-based database stored procedures are used for data intensive activities.
In WebSphere Commerce, payment processing uses the Payments subsystem.
In general, caching improves response time and reduces system load. Caching techniques are used to improve the performance of World Wide Web Internet applications. Most techniques cache static content (content that rarely changes) such as graphic and text files. However, many websites serve dynamic content, containing personalized information or data that changes more frequently. Caching dynamic content requires more sophisticated caching techniques, such as those provided by the WebSphere Application Server dynamic cache, a built-in service for caching and serving dynamic content.
The Data Load utility contains several configuration files. You can use the configuration file schema to understand and customize the data load configuration files.
WebSphere Commerce provides many web services.
Utilities help you to accomplish administrative or configuration tasks, for example, loading data, publishing a store.
Catalog subsystem URLs include all logic and data relevant to a catalog, including categories, products and their attributes, items, and groupings of each, and any associations or relationships among them.
The Member subsystem includes all logic and data relevant to registration, authentication, and grouping of all members. A member can be a user, an organization or organizational entity, or a member group.
The following URLs relate to the Messaging system.
The Order Management subsystem includes all logic and data relevant to placing, processing, and managing orders. The Order Management subsystem also deals with returns.
The server subsystem consists of functions that are associated with URLs that are run by the scheduler.
The starter stores consist of pages that are associated with URLs that are run by WebSphere Commerce Search. You can use the following URLs to invoke various WebSphere Commerce search tasks.
A WebSphere Commerce instance can be created from the command line. The command-line utility uses Apache Ant to create the objects required. The targets are divided into several high-level groups that correspond to the environment that is to be configured.