NAME: MUTUKU JOSEPH KIOKO

MSC PROCUREMENT AND LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT

STUDENT REG. NO HDE 324-C004-0215/2022

JOMO KENYATTA UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE AND

TECHNOLOGY
NAIROBI CBD CAMPUS

DEPARTMENT OF ENTREPRENUERSHIP AND

PROCUREMENT

HEPL 3205: E-COMMERCE – CAT 1

LECTURER: DR. JAMES GICHANA.

Table of Contents
Introduction...............................................................................................................................................2
Method used...............................................................................................................................................2
E-commerce Architecture.........................................................................................................................2
Transaction Servers...................................................................................................................................4
Ecommerce client considerations.............................................................................................................6
Hardware and Software Requirements for E-Commerce......................................................................9
Conclusion................................................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the buying and selling of goods and services, or the transmitting of
funds or data, over an electronic network, primarily the internet.
Method used
I have used qualitative research method to compile this work. It is the process of collecting,
analyzing, and interpreting non-numerical data, such as language. Qualitative research can be
used to understand how an individual subjectively perceives and gives meaning to their social
reality.
E-commerce Architecture
E-commerce is based on the client-server architecture. A client can be an application, which uses
a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that sends request to a server for certain services. The server is
the provider of the services requested by the client.
In E-commerce, a client refers to a customer who requests for certain services and the server
refers to the business application through which the services are provided. The business
application that provides services is deployed on a Web' server. The E - Commerce Web server
is a computer program that provides services to "other computer programs and serves requested
Hyper Text Mark-up Language (HTML) pages or files. In client-server architecture, a machine
can be both a client as well as a server.
There are two types of client server architecture that E-commerce follows: two-tier and three-
tier.
E- Commerce System Architecture: Two-tier architecture:
 In two-tier client-server architecture the user interface runs on the client and the database is
stored on the server. The business application logic can either run on the client or the server. The
user application logic can either run on the client or the server. It allows the client processes to
run separately from the server processes on different computers. 
The client processes provide an interface for the customer that gather and present the data on the
computer of the customer. This part of the application is known as presentation layer. The server
processes provide an interface with the data store of the business.

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This part of the application is known as data layer. The business logic, which validates data,
monitors security and permissions and performs other business rules, can be kept either on the
client or the server.

E- Commerce System Architecture: Three-tier architecture:

The three-tier architecture emerged in the 1990s to overcome the limitations of the two-tier
architecture. In three-tier architecture, the user interface and the business application logic, also
known as business rules and data storage and access, are developed and maintained as
independent modules.
The three-tier architecture includes three tiers: top tier, middle tier and third tier.
The top tier includes a user interface where user services such as session, text input, and dialog
and display management reside.
The middle tier provides process management services such as process development, process
monitoring and process resourcing that are shared by the multiple applications.
The third tier provides database management functionality. The data management component
ensures that the data is consistent throughout the distributed environment, the centralized process
logic in this architecture, which makes administration easier by localizing the system
functionality, is placed on the middle tier.
The client server architecture advantages: 
The client-server architecture provides standardized, abstract interfaces to establish
communication between multiple modules. When these modules are combined, they become an
integrated business application. Each module is a shareable and reusable object that can be
included in another business application.
In the client-server architecture, the functions of a business application are isolated within the
smaller business application objects and so application logic can be modified easily.
In "the client-server architecture, each business application object works with its own
encapsulated data structures that correspond to a specific database. When business application
objects communicate, they send the data parameters as specified in the abstract interface rather
than the entire database records.

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This reduces the network traffic. In the client-server architecture, a programmer can develop
presentation components without knowing the business application logic

Transaction Servers
A transaction server primarily enables transactions to be processed within distributed computing
applications. Typically, a transaction server is a combination of hardware, software and network
components that altogether ensures completion of each transaction. A transaction server works
when an application or application server requests for a specific data object residing on a
database or database server on the network or Internet. The transaction server acts as an
intermediary server that can ensure that the application or user receives the requested data from
the database or the completion of that transaction.
The transaction server is also the name of a Microsoft Server (Viper) or Microsoft transaction
server (MTS), which provides similar functionality. It provides transaction processing services
on the COM/DCOM based software components.
Transaction servers
Database Servers
Database servers are used to store and manage databases that are stored on the server and to
provide data access for authorized users. This type of server keeps the data in a central location
that can be regularly backed up. It also allows users and applications to centrally access the data
across the network. A large number of the databases used in an organization can be kept on one
server or a group of servers that are specifically configured to protect data and service client
Application Servers
Application servers are network computers that store and run an application for client computers.
They occupy a large chunk of computing territory between database servers and the end user.
Most broadly, this is called “middleware” which tells us something about what application
servers do. First and foremost, application servers connect database information (usually coming
from a database server) and the end-user or client program (often running in a Web browser).
There are many reasons for having an intermediate player in this connection, including a desire

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to decrease the size and complexity of client programs, the need to cache and control the data
flow for better performance, and a requirement to provide security for both data and user traffic.
Web Server
This genre of server focuses on serving web content to clients. Web servers simply take “GET”
and “POST” requests from clients (among other verbs). A “GET” request is when a client simply
wants to retrieve information and doesn’t have any information to submit to the server.
A “POST” request on the other hand is when a client does have information to share with the
server and expects a response back. For example, filling up a form on a web server and clicking
the submit button is a “POST” request from the client to the server.
Web servers are typically “headless” in nature. This is to preserve the memory on the server and
ensure that there’s enough to power the operating system and applications on the server.
E-Mail Server
An email server typically runs on “SMTP” or “Simple Mail Transfer Protocol”. There are other
possible protocols that newer mail servers operate on, but SMTP remains the dominant protocol.
An email server powers mail services. These servers in themselves simply take in emails from
one client to another and forward the data to the other server.
Web Proxy Server
A web proxy server can run on one of many protocols, but they all do one thing in common.
They take in user requests, filter them, and then act on the user’s behalf. The most popular type
of web proxy server is designed to get around school and organizational web filters.
Because web traffic is all through one IP address and website that isn’t yet blocked, users can
gain access to sites that are forbidden through these filters.
DNS Server
A DNS server, or “Domain Name Service” server, is used to translate domain names to their
corresponding IP addresses. This server is what your browser references when you type in a
domain name and press Enter. The idea is that users don’t have to memorize IP addresses and
organizations can have a fitting name.
Typically, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) provide DNS servers to their users.
FTP Server
FTP servers, or “File Transfer Protocol” servers, have a single purpose: to host a file exchange
among users. These servers do not provide any type of encryption by default, so there are a

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number of secured versions of the protocol that are often used in its place (such as FTP which is
FTP over secure SSH protocol). This type of server allows users to upload files to it or download
files after authenticating through an FTP client. Users can also browse the server’s files and
download individual files as they wish.

File Server
A File Server is different from an FTP server. This type of server is more modern and is typically
capable of “mapping” networked files onto drives. This means that users can use their home
computer’s file browser to look into folders. The main advantage of this form of server is that
users can upload and download shared files. Permissions to files are controlled by the
administrator.
Ecommerce client considerations
Scalability
Will the site perform efficiently through traffic peaks and valleys? Scalability may be one of the
most overused terms in IT marketing. Software makers would have you believe that every
application ever written was destined to be scalable from inception. But if any application has to
be scalable, it is certainly a major e-commerce Website. Sluggish internal applications are
annoying, but unresponsive customer-facing applications will frustrate your customers, drive
them to your competitors, and kill your online business. An e-commerce Website is only as good
as its ability to handle its peak traffic.
The Product Catalog
Will today’s catalog schema meet tomorrow’s demands? Your product catalog is the online
repository for every item you sell. It has to effectively promote the items you most want to push,
and simultaneously help your customers find the items they are looking for. But poorly
constructed product catalogs can be rigid and uncompromising, especially if the product
attributes you want to store don’t naturally align with the definitions set in your e-commerce
application. To make an inflexible product catalog accommodate business realities, companies
end up misusing data fields, filling irrelevant mandatory data fields with gibberish, duplicating
data in multiple places, and inventing esoteric codes to artificially accommodate information the
catalog doesn’t natively support.

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Business User Control
Will my application directly empower my merchandisers, marketing managers, and other
business owners? Many IT managers long for a world where there are no demanding business
users. They long for the end of business requests that seemingly come from left field, or arrive
urgently at the last minute. They crave a way to offload day-to-day updates and edits back to the
business. Many e-commerce applications require IT resources for daily maintenance, let alone
major projects. As a result, your business users are totally disconnected from the daily workings
of your e-commerce site. They send their change requests to IT, and IT has no choice but to
react. IT has difficulty planning and prioritizing, as they deal with a continual barrage of urgent
high-priority updates.
Search
How easily can customers find what they want, and how easily can I promote the products I want
to push based on customer searches? The search box is often the first tool an e-commerce
customer uses. There was a time when expectations of search were pretty low. Today, users
expect search to not only find but also guide them to the products they’re looking for. A search
experience that really works for your customers can significantly increase online revenue.
However, your own site search is just one piece of the puzzle. External search engines such as
Yahoo! and Google also need to find your products. This causes headaches for site managers
with dynamically generated e-commerce pages, because search engine spiders are likely to
misinterpret what they find on a dynamically generated page.
Agility
How easily can I implement business requests to monitor and respond to an individual Web
visitor’s behavior? Imagine this scenario and see if it rings any bells: The marketing team of an
electronics e-tailer wants to push high-definition televisions (HDTVs) over the next two weeks.
For every Web visitor who looks at more than five HDTVs and for whom they have an e-mail
address, they want to send an e-mail presenting the special offers.
Reporting and Analytics
Do I have all the features I need to understand my online business? Your e-commerce Website
stores a treasure trove of information about your customers, their behavior, and their preferences.
But businesses typically struggle to figure out how to leverage the business value this data holds.
Configuring your site to capture and log all the available information can be an arduous job,

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especially when the data is coming from a large variety of sources. Furthermore, you may be
using the data in different ways over time, and you may need new information to drive specific
campaigns. Or, you may want to base campaigns on different behavior from what you’ve been
tracking.
Standards
Is the application built on a standards-based platform? You’ve probably seen some nice
applications that solve all sorts of business problems, only to later discover that they were coded
in a language, database, or framework not supported by the skills of your people. If you adopt the
application and train your staff to support it, they’ll be concerned about career limitations by
tying themselves too closely to this esoteric solution.
Integration
How easily can the application integrate with my other systems? The e-commerce Website, once
a standalone silo, is now a highly integrated application that touches many other systems and
processes. The team that develops and supports it contains a mix of technical and business
professionals who drive an important part of the corporate strategy. As businesses become more
imaginative about how they mix their Web channel with other customer touchpoints, clean and
easy integration is mandatory. Just about every element of an e-commerce application may be
either self-contained or driven by other systems.
Interoperability
Does the application function within a service-oriented architecture? Many forward-thinking
businesses want their different applications to be able to “play together” so that new composite
applications and businesses processes can be quickly assembled to increase market
competitiveness. Service-oriented architecture (SOA) and the ability to wire applications
together based upon a Web services backbone will be important elements in improving a
business’s ability to respond to changing business conditions.
Synergy
Will the application support business models beyond B2C e-commerce? IT organizations
everywhere are looking for every opportunity to maximize their technology investments across
their enterprise. Some are recognizing similarities among the solutions for different business
channels, including B2C Websites, different brand sites, small business e-commerce sites,
enterprise accounts portals, and channel partner portals. They imagine that it might be easy to

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consolidate these channels onto a single platform. Although initially your business probably
selected an e-commerce application based on its ability to meet the needs of one part of your
business, it’s a good idea to look at where and how that application could support your other
business relationships.

Hardware and Software Requirements for E-Commerce

1. Web Server
• It refers to a common computer, which provides information to other computers on the
internet.
• It is either the hardware (the computer) or the software (the computer programs) that stores the
digital information (web content) and delivers it through Internet whenever required.
The three components to a web server
• The Hardware
• Operating system software
• web server software
2. Website
A Website is a collection of related web pages on a web server maintained by any individual or
organization. It is hosted on web server, accessible via internet or private LAN through an
internet address called URL (Uniform Resource Locator). All publicly accessible websites
collectively constitute the WWW (world wide web)
3. Internet Utility Programs
These are software tools to help users in developing, writing and documenting programs
4. Browsers – This is an application that has been designed to show what is on the internet,
whereby an e-commerce platform can be looked at from here.
[Link]/IP Addresses – Every computer must have an IP address thus an e-commerce platform
should always have the right device with the correct and legal IP[ address to be able to be
identified in the online sections.

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6. Storage Devices – As much as we are in a more digitized world, it is important for an e-
commerce platform to have hardware as per being a storage device for backup. This can also be
integrated in software terms by accessing cloud backups.
7. Catalogue display
A catalogue is an organized list of goods & services being sold. An e-catalogue is a simple list
of goods and services in HTML form that appears on a webpage on the website of an ecommerce
company.
8. Shopping Cart
It is an electronic basket provided by E-commerce service providers to be used by net users
to keep track of the products selected in the basket, compare and review them, modify it by
adding new ones or removing unwanted goods before finally deciding to purchase. After the
shopping is completed the customer will make the payment through online.
includes tools that read electronic document, scanned paper documented-mail messages,
web pages etc., to help users in decision making

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Conclusion
As the e-commerce Websites of more and more businesses come into their own as significant
revenue drivers, major retailers are now recognizing their online stores as mission-critical
businesses. And as they pay more attention to the online channel, many e-tailers are finding
that the current e-commerce platform can no longer support their growth or evolving business
needs. E-commerce executives and their IT counterparts are starting to look for more-
sophisticated applications that can best meet their current and future needs.
Selecting the right e-commerce application for the long term can be a difficult exercise. It’s not
easy to base a decision on both current requirements and a vague, undetermined set of future
needs that have not yet even hit the planning stages. Plus, at first glance, e-commerce
Website functionality seems pretty straightforward and almost commoditized: all e-commerce
Websites have product catalogs and offer ways to search for and navigate to desired items,
they all have shopping carts, they all offer special promotions like free shipping, and they all
offer secure transactions. But those common, expected features belie a complex set of
capabilities required to keep best-in-class Web stores appealing, responsive, and performing well
at high transaction volumes over the long term. The difference between e-commerce application
capabilities can spell the difference between an e-commerce site’s success and failure.
When so many e-commerce applications appear to share the same set of functions and features at
the “checkbox level,” the real differences don’t become apparent until you examine the fine
print. With a heritage of powering the e-commerce sites of some of the largest businesses in the
world, and with best-in-class ratings from leading analysts, Oracle can expertly guide you

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through the key questions to ask and criteria to consider as you prepare to invest in an e-
commerce platform
that will help your business succeed in a competitive market.

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