Solution

At the time of this writing in early 2002, Microsoft Commerce Server 2000 has been on the market for over a year, providing an answer to the question of how to quickly build an enterprise-level retail Web site that is functional, convenient, and smart. The follow-up product, Microsoft Commerce Server 2002, due to be released about the time that this book is scheduled to reach store shelves, extends the functionality provided by the earlier version, brings Commerce Server into the world of .NET, and includes even more extensive use of XML. This chapter explains how Commerce Server can be used to satisfy the requirements for, and expectations of retail Web sites from the various perspectives identified in the previous section.

Commerce Server plays the central role in Microsoft's solution for retail Web site creation. Microsoft Windows 2000 and Microsoft SQL Server 2000, as the operating system and database platforms, play important supporting roles respectively, upon which Commerce Server runs.

When using Commerce Server to build a retail Web site, and after you have installed Commerce Server and the associated software upon which it depends, you have several alternatives for how to begin:

• If there isn't a functional, Active Server Page-based (ASP-based) Web site already in existence, and which is going to continue to be used, Web site development can begin with one of the Commerce Server Solution Sites. About the same time that Commerce Server 2000 became available, Microsoft made the Retail and Supplier Solution Sites available for free download (these Solution Sites are available on the Commerce Server 2002 CD). These two Web sites are different configurations of a single code base that can serve as a starting point for developing retail and wholesale Web sites, respectively. They comprise a set of hundreds of ASP routines and the associated infrastructure that, once properly understood, allow customization to be done in a logical, maintainable, and extensible manner.

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