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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.
Administering
WebSphere Commerce instance
Every WebSphere Commerce installation requires at least one instance to function, and each WebSphere Commerce instance can contain one or more stores.
Clustering your WebSphere Commerce environment
After you federate your WebSphere Commerce environment, you can configure clustering. Clustering provides failover protection and workload balancing.
WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment clustering mechanism
WebSphere Commerce configures a WebSphere Application Server stand-alone profile for each WebSphere Commerce instance that is created. To cluster WebSphere Commerce machines, you must create a WebSphere Application Server deployment manager profile. If you install WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment on the same node as WebSphere Commerce, your hardware requirements are greater than if the node runs WebSphere Commerce only.

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.
- Operating
- Integrating
  Topics in the Integrating category highlight the tasks that are commonly performed for using WebSphere Commerce in combination with other products.
- Administering
  - Overview of administering a WebSphere Commerce site
    In WebSphere Commerce the person who performs administrative tasks is called a Site Administrator. The Site Administrator installs, configures, and maintains WebSphere Commerce and the associated software and hardware. The administrator responds to system warnings, alerts, and errors, and diagnoses and resolves system problems. Typically, this person controls access and authorization (creating and assigning members to the appropriate role), manages the Web site, monitors performance, and manages load balancing tasks. The Site Administrator might be responsible for establishing and maintaining several server configurations for different stages of development such as testing, staging, and production. The Site Administrator also handles critical system backups and resolves performance problems.
  - WebSphere Commerce instance
    Every WebSphere Commerce installation requires at least one instance to function, and each WebSphere Commerce instance can contain one or more stores.
    - Modifying a WebSphere Commerce instance
      You can use the Configuration Manager to change any of the configuration settings for your WebSphere Commerce instance.
    - Deleting a WebSphere Commerce instance
      You can delete an instance when you no longer need any of the resources and services that are associated with the instance. You can also choose to delete the WebSphere Application Server profile and server that is associated with the instance. Deleting an instance that is not needed can free up a significant amount of system resources and can make the resources available for other purposes.
    - Changing the ports used for WebSphere Commerce tools
      In the Instance creation wizard, you can specify the ports that are used for WebSphere Commerce tools. You can also change the ports after instance creation.
    - WebSphere Commerce federation
      Federating your WebSphere Commerce environment requires WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment. After you federate, you can configure clustering.
    - Clustering your WebSphere Commerce environment
      After you federate your WebSphere Commerce environment, you can configure clustering. Clustering provides failover protection and workload balancing.
      - WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment clustering mechanism
        WebSphere Commerce configures a WebSphere Application Server stand-alone profile for each WebSphere Commerce instance that is created. To cluster WebSphere Commerce machines, you must create a WebSphere Application Server deployment manager profile. If you install WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment on the same node as WebSphere Commerce, your hardware requirements are greater than if the node runs WebSphere Commerce only.
      - Adding vertical cluster members
        After you federate your WebSphere Commerce environment, you can configure vertical clustering. Clustering provides failover protection and provides workload balancing.
      - Adding horizontal cluster members
        After you federate your WebSphere Commerce environment, you can configure horizontal clustering. Clustering provides failover protection and provides workload balancing.
      - Removing a cluster member
        Changes to your WebSphere Commerce topology might require the removal of a cluster member. Ensure that these steps are followed to successfully complete the removal.
    - Configuring directory services (LDAP) with WebSphere Commerce
      WebSphere Commerce can be configured to use one or more LDAP servers as the master user repository instead of the WebSphere Commerce database. This is typically done when multiple applications need to share a common user repository.
    - Enabling the SSL Accelerator option
      An SSL Accelerator (or SSL Terminator) strips off HTTPS encryption at or before the Web server tier in a multitier setup. When you use an SSL Accelerator with WebSphere Commerce, you can use the SSL Accelerator option to configure WebSphere Commerce to correctly receive requests that require redirects.
    - XML configuration directory
      WebSphere Commerce uses an XML directory to configure many different aspects of its behavior. Many different customization tasks will require you to modify the XML, template definition, template definition DTD, and DTD files in these directories.
    - Changing database settings on an existing WebSphere Commerce instance
      If you want to change database settings, such as the database host name or the port number, on an existing WebSphere Commerce instance, you must manually complete the changes.
    - Business Object thresholds
      Applying limits on business operations reduces the risk of system attacks where unbound conditions might result in system failures.
  - Managing features
    You can administer the features for your store and site, such as attribute, catalog, promotion, marketing, order management features, and more. The administration tasks that you can complete differ depending on the type of feature and the tool that you use to administer your store and site.
  - Logging services
    WebSphere Commerce provides facilities for logging. For existing customers, ECTrace and ECMessage are still supported. For new implementations, use the WebSphere Application Server recommendation for logging and tracing.
  - Business auditing
    Business auditing is the capturing of the business logic and objects during a WebSphere Commerce operation. You may want to audit your business for various reasons: generic, such as to review various tasks performed weekly; or specific, such as to track the steps involved in a particular Customer Service Representative's order. A report on business auditing is available in the Administration Console.
  - Business events
    Each time that a command triggers a business event, a record is added to the BUSEVENT database table to persist data from the event. Event listeners and external systems (such as the Marketing component, a back end order management system, or an external analytics system) can use this data to perform further processing.
  - Staging server
    The WebSphere Commerce staging server is a part of the production environment where business and technical users can update and manage store data and preview changes. The changes can then be propagated to the production server.
  - WebSphere Commerce database
    As a site administrator, maintain the WebSphere Commerce database and ensure that any WebSphere Commerce utilities and processes that load and retrieve data from the database is configured to connect to the database properly.
  - Dynamic caching
    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.
  - Extracting, transforming, and loading data
    WebSphere Commerce provides multiple utilities for preparing and loading data into a WebSphere Commerce database. The loading utilities are flexible and you can continue to use these utilities when you customize the WebSphere Commerce schema.
  - Payment plug-ins
    To configure a payment plug-in define payment and refund methods; payment and refund rules; and the payment protocols that you intend to use.
  - WebSphere Commerce Search
    For a fully functioning WebSphere Commerce Search implementation, you must understand and complete the search administration tasks, which include search index management and ongoing maintenance.
  - Deploying a WebSphere Commerce dual cell environment
    Consider deploying a dual cell environment to achieve continuous availability and ensure that shoppers are minimally affected by planned or unplanned outages.
  - IBM Customer Service for WebSphere Commerce
    IBM Customer Service for WebSphere Commerce is a separately purchased product that provides a light-weight customer service solution that is embedded in the Aurora B2C and Aurora B2B storefronts. Even though this solution is a separately purchased product, it is not a separate application. Stores that are enabled with IBM Customer Service for WebSphere Commerce allow a customer service representative (CSR) to act on behalf of guest customers and registered customers. A CSR can manage customer accounts, cancel and reorder orders, and shop as customer. A CSR can also act on behalf of Buyer Administrators to help complete Aurora B2B tasks from the storefront, without having to access the Organization Administration Console.
- 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

WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment clustering mechanism

WebSphere Commerce configures a WebSphere Application Server stand-alone profile for each WebSphere Commerce instance that is created. To cluster WebSphere Commerce machines, you must create a WebSphere Application Server deployment manager profile. If you install WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment on the same node as WebSphere Commerce, your hardware requirements are greater than if the node runs WebSphere Commerce only.

Important: When you create a clustered environment, ensure that the original node remains active. WebSphere Commerce relies on the WebSphere Application Server profile on the original node for maintenance tasks such as applying fixes.

Review the following topics for different types of clustering for WebSphere Commerce:

For more information about clustering, see Clusters and workload management.

The following diagram shows an example of a WebSphere Commerce cluster:

This diagram shows how WebSphere Commerce clustering functions. The WebSphere Application Server Deployment Manager node manages multiple WebSphere Commerce Nodes. These WebSphere Commerce nodes handle requests that are received from the Web server node and access the database node if needed. The response is then sent back to the Web server node, and out to the customer's browser.