Study Guide Exercise 10

1. List some application servers in competition with ZOPE. Access the web
and find the latest version of the application servers mentioned in the text.
When were they released? Can you make any conclusion about the release
cycle of Internet software in comparison to other business software (e.g.
spreadsheet, word processor, accounting packages)?

List of application server website in competition with ZOPE:
http://jboss.org/
http://www.orionserver.com/
http://enhydra.enhydra.org/

ZOPE latest release: version 2.11.2, released on 25/10/2008.
Jboss latest release: version 5.1.0.Beta1, released on 13/03/2009
Websphere latest release: version 7.0 library, released on 31/03/2009

From our study, internet software release comes in 2 version, a minor release and a major release. Minor release is usually a bug fix or an added library, this release comes out often. However the major release which is the new system with all the added functionalities comes out not that often, on average is like once every 6 months or more. Compared with the conventional software, internet software releases is quite fast. For conventional software both the minor release and major release takes much more time. For example Windows XP takes 3-4 years before Windows Vista is released and the service pack takes at least 6 months each.
Reference:
Current Zope Releases (2009), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://www.zope.org/Products/

JBoss Application Server Download (2009), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://www.jboss.org/jbossas/downloads/

WebSphere Software (2009), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/download/brand.jsp?b=Websphere

Software Release Life Cycle (2007), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle

2. List the main Web servers. What types of companies are offering the
leading servers? Distinguish between open source and proprietary products. Who is providing support for the products? How much do they cost? Do you think the Web server purchase price is a significant factor in budget considerations for a large e-commerce initiative?


March 2009 web server survey

Apache: 36,243,694 (48.89%)
Micosoft: 27,854,444 (37.57%)
Google: 4,050,030 (5.46%)
nginx: 2,303,451 (3.11%)
qq.com: 46,048 (0.06%)

As we can see from the list, the most popular web server is Apache. Which is an open source product. That means they cost nothing, which is probably why they are so popular. However we can not conclude that web server puchase price is a significant factor in the budget considerations for the organization. In here we must remember that most organization will try to incorporate their e-commerce front with the existing system, hence the most important consideration for them is compatibility with the older system (unless they want to change the whole system). In other words they will adopt a web server that will be able to work together with their existing system no matter the price.

Reference:

March 2009 Web Server Survey (2009), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2009/03/15/march_2009_web_server_survey.html

3. Go to the website of IBM, Oracle, Microsoft and Sybase. Is there any
mention of e-commerce associated with their database products? What suite
or partnership do they list with related e-commerce offerings? How do they
compare with open source products like MySQL?

After further research we found the following database products for each company:

IBM: IBM DB2.
Oracle: Oracle 11g.
Microsoft: Microsoft SQL Server.
Sybase: Advantage Database Server.

However none of them mentions how their product will support e-commerce per se. All of them only promote their products in general terms and functionalities. For example, here is the offering for Advantage from Sybase:
Advantage Database Server is a full-featured, high performance client/server data management system specifically designed to meet the needs of business application developers. Advantage is unique among the Sybase database offerings in that it provides both Indexed Sequential Access Method (ISAM) table-based and SQL-based data access, providing a growth path for legacy database applications to today's modern techniques.

Compared with open source products like MySQL, this proprietory products have full support from the organizations that made them, so it will be easier if there is a problem. Other than that proprietory products also gets update more frequent, as oppose to that, open source products like MySQL updates can not be predicted on when it will show up. However other than that, the products is pretty similar. And MySQL supports many functions that the proprietory products have.

reference:
DB2 Everyplace (2009), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/data/db2/everyplace/index.html

Oracle Database 11g (2009), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://www.oracle.com/database/standard_edition.html

Advantage Database Server (2009), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://www.sybase.com/products/databasemanagement/advantagedatabaseserver

4. Access the web and find the current rate for website hosting. What are the criteria used by the ISP for pricing?

From the data that I gained from http://www.top10webhosting.com/ the price of web hosting is varied. On their top 10 list, the top 3 rate is $3.95 per month, from there it goes as high as $8.96 per month. The pricing criterias that is most important is the storage space, bandwidth size, and allowed emails.

Reference:
Top 10 Web Hosting (2009), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://www.top10webhosting.com/

5. Why is the perception getting stronger that integration will become a critical factor in coming days? What is the role of ERP within the enterprise
software architecture?

Integration allows organizations to work together more effectively, this brings in a new opportunity for organization to reduce cost. Every organization aims to integrate their system with their business partners, not only this will establish a better relationship with their business partners but also reduce the overall cost and time in dealing with them.
Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is an organization computer software system that is used to manage all the resources, information, and functions of a business from shared data storage. An ERP system has a service-oriented architecture with modular hardware and software units that communicate on a local area network. This design allows businesses to add or reconfigure modules while preserving data integrity in one shared database that may be centralized or distributed.
Reference:
Enterprise Resource Planning (2007), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_resource_planning

6. What is Customer Relationship Management and why is it important to
e-commerce?

Customer relationship management (CRM) consists of all the processes an organization use to manage its contacts with its current and prospective customers. CRM software main aim is to support these processes; information about customers can be entered, stored and accessed by organization employees in different departments and/or branch. The main CRM goals are to improve services provided to customers, and to use customer contact information for targeted marketing.
Reference:
Customer Relationship Management (2007), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer_relationship_management

7. What are the differences between HTML and DHTML?
Dynamic HTML, or DHTML, is a combination of technologies used at the same time to create an interactive web sites. This is achieved by using a combination of a static markup language (such as HTML), a client-side scripting language (such as JavaScript), a presentation definition language (such as CSS), and the Document Object Model. DHTML allows scripting languages to change variables in a web page's definition language, which in turn affects the look and function of otherwise "static" HTML page content, after the page has been fully loaded and during the viewing process. Thus the dynamic characteristic of DHTML is the way it functions while a page is viewed, not in its ability to generate a unique page with each page load.
While HTML, an initialism of HyperText Markup Language. Is a definition language that provides a means to describe the structure of text-based information in a document—by denoting certain text as links, headings, paragraphs, lists, etc.—and to add that text with interactive forms, embedded images, and other objects. HTML is written in the form of "tags" that are surrounded by angle brackets.

Reference:
Hypertext Markup Language (2006), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML
Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language (2008), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DHTML

8. Why was XHTML developed? Do you think this addresses most of the
HTML weaknesses?

The Extensible Hypertext Markup Language, or XHTML, is a markup language that has the same depth of expression as HTML, but also conforms to XML syntax. While HTML prior to HTML 5 was defined as an application of Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), a very flexible markup language, XHTML is an application of XML, a more restrictive subset of SGML. Because they need to be well-formed, true XHTML documents allow for automated processing to be performed using standard XML tools—unlike HTML, which requires a relatively complex, lenient, and generally custom parser. XHTML can be thought of as the intersection of HTML and XML in many respects, since it is a reformulation of HTML in XML.
Reference:
Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (2008), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XHTML

9. What are the similarities between JavaScript, VBScript and ZOPE’s
DTML?

Both JavaScript and VBScript is a client side scripting. Which means that it is a computer programs on the web that are executed client-side, by the user's web browser, instead of server-side (on the web server). This type of computer programming is an important part of the Dynamic HTML (DHTML) concept, enabling web pages to be scripted; that is, to have different and changing content depending on user input, environmental conditions (such as the time of day), or other variables.

However ZOPE’s DTML according to the ZOPE website is a server side script. This means that DTML commands are executed by Zope at the server, and the result of that execution is sent to your web browser. By contrast, "client-side" scripting languages like JavaScript are not processed by the server, but are rather sent to and executed by your web browser.

Reference:
DTML (2008), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Books/ZopeBook/2_6Edition/DTML.stx
Client Side Scripting (2007), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Client_side_scripting

10. What are the similarities and differences between ASP, JSP and PHP?

The similarities between the three is that they are all a server side scripting language. Which means that they are a web program that is executed on the server and the result is translated into HTML which is then sent to the client web browser. But that is the extent of their similarities, other then that they are all different. They can only run on specific server, for example, PHP can only run on an Apache server, while JSP can only run on Tomcat server and ASP only on Microsoft server. And of course all the syntax is also different. Although ASP and JSP uses the same tag to be recognized by the server, which is .

11. What are the differences between the various approaches to scripting?

There are two approaches to scripting, that is Client side and server side scripting. Client side scripting is a computer programs on the web that are executed client-side, by the user's web browser, instead of server-side (on the web server). This type of computer programming is an important part of the Dynamic HTML (DHTML) concept, enabling web pages to be scripted; that is, to have different and changing content depending on user input, environmental conditions (such as the time of day), or other variables.
While server-side scripting is a technology in which a user's request is fulfilled by running a script directly on the web server to generate dynamic web pages. It is usually used to provide interactive web sites that interface to databases or other data stores. This is different from client-side scripting where scripts are run by the viewing web browser, usually in JavaScript. The primary advantage to server-side scripting is the ability to highly customize the response based on the user's requirements, access rights, or queries into data stores.
Reference:
Server Side Scripting (2007), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_side_scripting
Client Side Scripting (200), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Client_side_scripting

12. List some of the shareware or freely available tools for web design. In
addition to a good HTML editor, what utilities could be very handy to the
developer?

List of freely available tool for web design:

NVU Open Source Web Builder
WYSIWYG Web Builder
Serif Web Plus SE
Blue Voda Web Builder

Other than a good HTML editor another program that will be very handy to a developer is a media editing program. To create a good website a developer need to be able to fully customize the media content in its website so that they all adhere to the website theme.

Reference:
Easy Web Design (2009), Last Accessed April 7th, 2009 from
http://www.your3dsource.com/easywebdesign.html