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User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to WebSphere Commerce Version 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in a newer section.WebSphere Commerce is a single, unified e-commerce platform that offers the ability to do business directly with consumers (B2C), directly with businesses (B2B), and indirectly through channel partners (indirect business models). WebSphere Commerce is designed to be a customizable, scalable, and high availability solution that is built to leverage open standards. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels.
Deploying
The topics in this section describe how to publish stores to either a test or production environment, and how to deploy customized code.
WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool
The WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool is designed to address the error-prone and time-consuming nature of customized asset deployment. Manual customized asset deployment involves accessing and updating numerous systems, including your database, web server, application server, and WebSphere Commerce server. Manual customization can be problematic, especially for a production environment where downtime has a negative impact on the business. For a customization project with many developers, it is a challenge to ensure that each development environment setup is quick, easy, and repeatable to preserve productivity. The WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool provides a starting point for you to automate your build and deployment processes in a standardized, controlled manner.
… server deployment process
After you create the deployment package, you can deploy it using additional Ant scripts provided as part of the WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool.

User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to WebSphere Commerce Version 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in a newer section.WebSphere Commerce is a single, unified e-commerce platform that offers the ability to do business directly with consumers (B2C), directly with businesses (B2B), and indirectly through channel partners (indirect business models). WebSphere Commerce is designed to be a customizable, scalable, and high availability solution that is built to leverage open standards. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels.
- Planning
  Creating a custom implementation of a WebSphere Commerce store requires a significant amount of planning. From gathering client needs, to deploying the live solution, much work is needed to successfully deploy a custom client store. Use the resources in here to help you plan every phase of store creation.
- Installing
  Review the following sections for information about installing the WebSphere Commerce product, associated maintenance, and WebSphere Commerce enhancements.
- Migrating
  Before you migrate to WebSphere Commerce Version 8.0, review this information to help plan and execute your migration.
- Deploying
  The topics in this section describe how to publish stores to either a test or production environment, and how to deploy customized code.
  - WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool
    The WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool is designed to address the error-prone and time-consuming nature of customized asset deployment. Manual customized asset deployment involves accessing and updating numerous systems, including your database, web server, application server, and WebSphere Commerce server. Manual customization can be problematic, especially for a production environment where downtime has a negative impact on the business. For a customization project with many developers, it is a challenge to ensure that each development environment setup is quick, easy, and repeatable to preserve productivity. The WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool provides a starting point for you to automate your build and deployment processes in a standardized, controlled manner.
    - Prerequisites
      Before you begin, you must ensure that all prerequisites for the WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool are met. In addition, you must learn about the current build, development, and deployment processes that are used in your project. Learning about the current processes helps in planning the adoption of the WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool.
    - Location and file structure
      The WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool is installed as part of the WebSphere Commerce product installation to WC_installdir/wcbd/. If you are installing WebSphere Commerce Developer, it is installed to WCDE_installdir/wcbd/.
    - … build process
      The WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool is highly configurable, in order to suit your current server environment, repository structure, and target environments.
    - … server deployment process
      After you create the deployment package, you can deploy it using additional Ant scripts provided as part of the WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool.
      - Installing the server deployment package
        Use the WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool to generate the server deployment package; then install the package to the WebSphere Commerce Server environment.
      - File structure of the server deployment directory
        The server deployment directory has a specific structure used by the WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool. This page describes the structure and how it is used by the Build and Deployment tool.
      - Setting up the static Web server assets deployment Ant script
        To deploy static Web server assets to a remote Web server with different file transfer methods, the server deployment scripts require you to provide a custom static Web server assets deployment Ant build file that is run as part of the server deployment process.
      - Setting up the WebSphere Commerce configuration file synchronization Ant script
        Developers of a customization project often manually edit the WebSphere Commerce configuration file wc-server.xml outside of the Configuration Manager and check it into the repository.
      - Setting up the Data Load utility customization deployment Ant script
        Users can leverage the Data Load utility to load different types of bulk data into the database. If the data type is not supported out of the box, it may require customization. Typically, a user would run the tool on the WebSphere Commerce server, so the tool customization might need to be deployed there. In order to support the deployment of the Data Load utility customization to a remote WebSphere Commerce server with different file transfer methods, the server deployment scripts require users to provide a custom 'Data Load utility customization deployment Ant build file' that is executed as part of the server deployment process. A sample 'Data Load utility customization deployment Ant build file' is provided, which you can edit on your server deployment system to use in the server deployment process.
      - Configuring the server deployment settings
        Configure your server deployment settings before running the server deployment script. These settings consist of important information like software installation paths and key information about your WebSphere Commerce server.
      - Running the server deployment process
        Now that you have generated your deployment package and configured your deployment settings, you can run the server deployment process on your WebSphere Commerce server. Ensure that you perform a system backup before proceeding with this task.
      - Advanced server deployment features
        The WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool provides many advanced server deployment features to support more complex configurations. Ensure that you review this page to find and implement features that may improve your server deployment process.
      - Configuring and running the server delta deployment process
        The WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool provides the delta deployment feature that reduces deployment time significantly by deploying only the changes between two builds.
      - Server deployment configuration references
        Configuring the server deployment process mainly involves setting properties in configuration properties files. Refer to the topics below for detailed description and usage of these properties.
    - … toolkit deployment process
      After you create the deployment package, you can deploy it to your development environment using additional Ant scripts provided as part of the WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool.
    - … customizing
      Although the WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool supports a wide range of configuration by default through samples and configurations, a WebSphere Commerce customization project may have very specific needs that are not easily supported. To tailor to such needs, the WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool provides extension points which can be leveraged to develop customized build and deployment processes. This section provides customization guidelines and instructions.
  - Managed asset deployment
    Managed assets are files that are uploaded by business users to be used for store marketing, or to supplement products. They are added to WebSphere Commerce through the Assets tool or the Marketing tool in Management Center. By default, managed assets are extracted and deployed through the WebSphere Commerce EAR. To maintain performance in a large-scale production environment, site administrators must switch to alternative extraction and deployment methods for managed assets.
  - Deploying customized assets
    When you deploy customized assets for WebSphere Commerce, consider the two stages: packaging and deploying.
  - Minimizing downtime during deployment
    Your WebSphere Commerce site is an integral part of your company's revenue flow, so disruptions and any downtime should be minimized. Moreover, taking down a site for long periods of time or frequently, reflects on the store's credibility and impacts the customer's shopping experience with and potential return visits to the site.
  - How to increase your success with WebSphere Commerce deployment
    Use these tips and best practices to help you successfully deploy WebSphere Commerce.
  - WebSphere Commerce deployment checklist
    The WebSphere Commerce deployment checklist is based on lessons learned from IBM internal groups, external customers and business partners deploying WebSphere Commerce-based solutions. This checklist is intended to provoke discussion; it is not a detailed set of instructions.
  - Publishing a store archive
    Publishing a store archive to a WebSphere Commerce Server allows you to create a running store. You have two options for publishing a store archive: Publishing a store archive using the Publish wizard, Publishing a store archive using the publishstore utility.
- Operating
- Integrating
  Topics in the Integrating category highlight the tasks that are commonly performed for using WebSphere Commerce in combination with other products.
- Administering
- Tutorials
  WebSphere Commerce provides many tutorials to help you customize and understand your WebSphere Commerce instance and stores.
- Samples
- Developing
  The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.
- Compliance
  The following section describes how you can leverage WebSphere Commerce features and functionality to help your site be compliant with different privacy and security standards.
- Securing
  These topics describe the security features of WebSphere Commerce and how to configure these features.
- Performance
- Troubleshooting

Configuring and running the server deployment process

After you create the deployment package, you can deploy it using additional Ant scripts provided as part of the WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool.

High-level server deployment process flow — Figure 1. High-level server deployment process flow