Chapter 11 - Solutions Architecture Case Study

Abstract

This chapter discusses varied topics—B2C and B2B e-commerce models, technology and product building blocks, security, and data quality and integrity—in a single solutions architecture case study of a fictional company that desperately needs to implement B2C and B2B e-commerce capabilities. The case study in this chapter will start from the up-front strategy work, including assessing the company's current situation with regard to e-commerce and accompanying business intelligence and creating a road map from their current state to the desired future state. A healthy dose of existing systems migration and integration architecture is also part of the scenario, since real-world development rarely occurs without needing to consider the integrate-or-migrate problem. The e-commerce data warehousing strategy drives the architecture and design choices that are subsequently made. Data warehousing in an e-commerce environment should not be done in the classical manner, disjointed from and after the transactional environments with which it is linked. Rather, every aspect from strategy to architecture to closely integrated development projects needs to be done in concert with one another to ensure that the desired integration of transactional and business intelligence functionality occurs.