January 17, 2011 | 
Author There are significant architecture changes in Commerce server R2 and one of the change is converting commerce server topology from 2-tier architecture to 3-tier architecture. Previously we used install commerce server on web servers only but in R2, we got flexibility to install commerce server in different machine/farm. In this 3-tier architecture, we have web tier, application tier and data tier and below architecture diagram illustrate it.
In web tier, three components are deployed. They are SharePoint Commerce runtime, a Commerce Routing Service (CRS), and Windows Identity Foundation.
SharePoint commerce runtime is part of R2 and it provides API to interact with commerce server.
Routing service is responsible for impersonating shoppers if a non-windows identity is the incoming request identity. i.e., when running in ASP.NET compatibility mode, the web identity will be examined and when running without ASP.NET compatibility (JSON, REST, etc.), the thread identity will be examined. Note, in the diagram above, Silverlight uses only basicHttp where as other hosts can use WebHttp and this service uses STS certificate to validate the signed security token.
Windows Identity Foundation is used to asserts authorization based on a normalized set of claims. The policy can be changed without affecting existing service authorization.
In the application-tier, Commerce Foundation APIs, Commerce Server core systems (CS2007 sub systems), and out of box Web services will be deployed, along with other components and SQL Server is located in the database tier. I will blog more information on each component in coming articles.
If you like this post, please click on our sponsor advertisement.
Posted in Commerce Server R2
6 Responses to “Commerce Server R2 architecture”
Leave a Reply
[...] refresh requests at the interval specified in configuration and clears the affected local caches(click here to know CS2009 R2 architecture) . Subsequent data requests refill the cache with the latest [...]
Hi Ravi –
We are in the process of starting a Microsoft Commerce Server (MCS) 2009 R2 based. Also i am new to MCS but more than a decade of experience in ATG, IBM WCS and other e-Commerce packages. Some of my understanding and comparison of that platforms dont gell well with MCS architecture. So i have a # of questions which probably you can help
1. Since now R2 has this 3 tier architrecture does MS recommend to use this compared to the old 2 tier architecture?
2. I believe 3 tier should be the way as it will help better control the firewall configurations between the tiers. I was thinking of having a firewall before the webserver and one in between the web and app server. Not sure if i realy need another one between app and database? I think that can have a negative impact on performance while accessing database? Any comments?
3. As part of R2 looks like there are multiple apporaches in building the website, 1. using Sharepoint as the delivery channel and 2. Using the regular ASP.Net approach. Which one do you recommend and what is the advantage of one over the other. I am really concerned on performance as we have a 2 sec response time SLA for all our pages and i dont want to add the Sharepoint processing overheads.
4. What are the options to build a merchendize application which my business users can use to manage their catalog and other merchendize assets ? I prefer a web based interface
5. What are the options to build a customer service application for my CSR agentst to attend the customer queries/complaints? Again i prefer a web based interface
Many questions in one shot…:-). Let me answer one by one.
1. Since now R2 has this 3 tier architrecture does MS recommend to use this compared to the old 2 tier architecture?
[Ravi Kanth] As far I know, Microsoft didn’t recommend any thing (2 tier or 3 tier) but pushing commerce server in the back seat will give us lot of flexibility in architecting/scalability etc.
2. I believe 3 tier should be the way as it will help better control the firewall configurations between the tiers. I was thinking of having a firewall before the webserver and one in between the web and app server. Not sure if i realy need another one between app and database? I think that can have a negative impact on performance while accessing database? Any comments?
[Ravi Kanth] You may be correct but that is not the only one advantage. For example, I can create commerce server service bus (where I host all commerce server site on single server or farm) and all my websites will leverage this bus for ecommerce transactions.
3. As part of R2 looks like there are multiple apporaches in building the website, 1. using Sharepoint as the delivery channel and 2. Using the regular ASP.Net approach. Which one do you recommend and what is the advantage of one over the other. I am really concerned on performance as we have a 2 sec response time SLA for all our pages and i dont want to add the Sharepoint processing overheads.
[Ravi Kanth] I would prefer to go with SharePoint as it brings lot of Web 2.0 capabilities and also we can leverage OOB starter site code to develop our website. 2 sec response time is very abstract statement. What if the downstream applications (ERP or CRM) has 2 seconds SLA? Is the response time is from IIS Request to IIS Response? I would recommend you to be more cautious while architecting the application.
4. What are the options to build a merchendize application which my business users can use to manage their catalog and other merchendize assets ? I prefer a web based interface
[Ravi Kanth] Microsoft CS team has released business administrative ribbon (with limited features). Check my blog more details. http://microsoftblog.co.in/commerceserver/introduction-to-business-administrative-ribbon/
If you are looking for something which is similar to Catalog Manager over web then it will become ASK to MS.
5. What are the options to build a customer service application for my CSR agentst to attend the customer queries/complaints? Again i prefer a web based interface
[Ravi Kanth] If you go with SharePoint, we can go with extended website to have seperate site for Agents and they can see similar UI (what customers see). May be couple of webparts can be enable or disable based on claims.
Hope I answered your questions.
Thanks for the detailed response Ravi.
Regarding # 3, My defnition of response time is categorized in 2 ways. Non Transactional Pages like Home Page, Category Page, Product Details Page, Search Results Page should have a < 2 seconds response time. All transactional pages (Registration, Checkout, My Account etc) will need to have a < 5 seconds response time. I dont see any reason why my e-commerce site needs to talk to downstream applicaitons like ERP and CRM in real time. This will be a asynchronous interface via a broker. We have devised our own unique way of measuring the response directly from the data center, wherein measurement happens from the time the request hits the server and response is sent back. Also what i understand from your response is there is no performance impact i will have if i use Sharepoint as delivery channel
Regarding # 5: Not sure if i understood your response right, but what i am looking forward for is a CSR application where CSR agents can process order query/modifications, user query/modifications including password resets and returns processing. Did you mean there are Share point web parts available out of box which i can configure to achieve the above functions.
Another question i had was is there any standard process that is available to do sizing for MCS platform. I know the business volumes that i need to support.
#3 => I agree with you. For non-transactional pages, no need to go to downstream applications. Response time depends on the load (Cuncurrent, simultaneous); so be careful on this. SharePoint comes with extra little overhead and you have to check whether the response times can be achieved . Note”:CS2009 on MOSS is slower than CS2009 on SPS2010.
#5 => Yes.. we can check http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261698.aspx which explains how can we expose same site to two different types of users.
There is no Sizing available for CS2009. CS team recommends to use SPS2010 sizing guidelines for CS2009.
Step by step Configuration Commerce Server with SharePoint by images http://sharepointtaskmaster.blogspot.com/2011/12/step-by-step-configuration-commerce.html