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Documentation
This Help Center provides documentation on all aspects of the HCL Commerce+ product, from installation and deployment to operating and customization.
Reference
Topics in the Reference section contain all of the Commerce+ reference documentation.
REST API
The REST API reference describes the available endpoints for customizing the system. Essential information such as the resource path, descriptions of each operation, and samples of the request and response payloads is provided.

Documentation
This Help Center provides documentation on all aspects of the HCL Commerce+ product, from installation and deployment to operating and customization.
- Overview
  Welcome to the HCL Commerce+ overview. Explore these feature overviews to learn how Commerce+ operates. Refer to the related links listed at the end of each topic to access expanded product documentation.
- Deploying
  This section provides details on deploying HCL Commerce+. It explains how to download the Docker images and Git bundles that comprise the product, how to create a minimal environment, and how to plan for a full deployment. It details supported software versions, patches, and configurations to ensure the platform performs well.
- Migrating
  The following topics show how to migrate an existing HCL Commerce Version 9.1 environment to Commerce+. The process consists of an initial migration of your database contents. This is followed by a code migration. Both are fully described.
- Operating
  The topics in this section focus on tasks that are performed by business users, marketers, and customer support representatives to connect with partners and attract and satisfy customers.
- Administering
  The site administrator performs the tasks needed to support day to day operations of the Commerce+ site.
- Extending
  Using Commerce+'s xC programming model, you can use HCL-provided extension points to extend existing Commerce logic. You can implement these extensions with the xC Customization toolkit provided by HCL. Commerce+ also provides Packaged Business Capability integrations that extend the product's reach and functionality.
- Securing
  These topics describe the security features of Commerce+ and how to configure these features.
- Performance
  Topics in the Performance section describe the means by which to plan, implement, test, and re-visit the optimization of Commerce+ site performance.
- Troubleshooting
  Topics in the Troubleshooting section highlight common issues that are encountered with Commerce+, and how they can be addressed or mitigated.
- Reference
  Topics in the Reference section contain all of the Commerce+ reference documentation.
  - REST API
    The REST API reference describes the available endpoints for customizing the system. Essential information such as the resource path, descriptions of each operation, and samples of the request and response payloads is provided.
    - Transaction Server REST API
      You can use the Commerce+ Transaction Server API to managing the overall system. The API includes resources for creating, retrieving, changing, and deleting data to administer the Commerce+ infrastructure.
    - Mapping of REST services to storefront checkout actions
      The Aurora starter store uses REST services throughout the checkout process. The actions for each page map to a REST service.
    - REST service annotations
      Commerce+ REST services and Search REST services are annotated so you view and test the APIs with Swagger, an interactive REST service interface. The REST Discovery API generates a list of REST resources and APIs by parsing annotations on a resource handler. By documenting your custom REST resource handlers with the same annotation standards as Commerce+ REST services, your custom REST services can be viewed and tested with Swagger.
  - Run Engine commands
    The following Run Engine commands are available by default for you to configure the applications that are running inside the containers.
  - Commerce+ database schema
    The Commerce+ database model was designed for data integrity and optimal performance. Commerce+ provides several hundred tables that store 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.
  - Payments subsystem
    In Commerce+, payment processing uses the Payments subsystem.
  - 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 Open Liberty Server dynamic cache, a built-in service for caching and serving dynamic content.
  - Cache-entry elements
    The root element of the cachespec.xml file, <cache>, contains <cache-entry> elements. The WebSphere dynamic cache service parses the cachespec.xml file during start-up, and extracts a set of configuration parameters from each <cache-entry> element.
  - Commerce+ web services
    Commerce+ provides many web services.
  - Utilities
    In Commerce+ utilities are scripts that perform operations such as loading access control policies, loading store data, and cleaning the database of obsolete objects. In runtime environments, run utilities from the Utility server Docker container. In the development environment, run utilities from the bin directory.
  - Messaging system URLs
    The following URLs relate to the Messaging system.
  - Scheduler URLs
    The server subsystem consists of functions that are associated with URLs that are run by the scheduler.

REST API

The REST API reference describes the available endpoints for customizing the system. Essential information such as the resource path, descriptions of each operation, and samples of the request and response payloads is provided.

The Commerce+ REST API adheres to the OpenAPI 3.0 specification. Using Swagger, you can visualize and test these APIs in a user-friendly interface.

Security considerations

For security reasons, Swagger should not be exposed in your live production environment.
You can restrict it from being exposed in the following ways:
- If the REST API ports are not required to be exposed externally, ensure that they are blocked by your firewall rules. These ports include 5443, 9443, 8000, 30800, and 30900.
- If you need to expose these ports:
  1. Disable the REST Discovery API for the Transaction server. For more information, see Enabling and disabling the REST Discovery API.
  2. Ensure that you configure your web server to block access to the following swagger endpoints:
    - https:///catalog/api/swagger-ui/index.html
    - https:///inventory/api/swagger-ui/index.html
    - https:///location/api/swagger-ui/index.html
    - https:///promotion/api/swagger-ui/index.html
    - https:///pricing/api/swagger-ui/index.html

Viewing Swagger specifications

You can view the Swagger specifications here: