Enterprise & B2B eCommerce SOA Implementation How and why an SOA provides value for Enterprise and B2B ecommerce platforms What is Service-Oriented Architecture for eCommerce? An eCommerce enterprise solution is typically implemented with a lifespan target of 3-10 years and many times the need to "start over" with a platform is significantly oriented toward technology changes internally as well as externally. A Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) enables software solutions to interact, integrate with, and grow with internal and external systems changes and varying needs. As the environment changes, enterprise eCommerce platforms can interact and change to adapt. How It Works The model of SOA for eCommerce is a set of software comprised of self-contained, independent, loosely coupled services executing alone or composed with other services to fulfill business requirements and implement business processes, whether it's traditional eCommerce, a marketplace, or B2B auction. In other words, a solution that allows for the interchangeability of parts while delivering on a core business function. Imagine needing to start with enterprise eCommerce software that processes payments for a business division's needs. Upon validating the business division's results with the traditional or wholesale eCommerce platform the next needs might be as follows: Core B2B eCommerce solutions validated for single division. Add additional divisions for eCommerce multi-store with branded stores and domains per division. Securely integrate order fulfillment from an online store to a line of business and ERP/CRM systems. Automate product, category, inventory, and customer data/pricing levels to the site from the line of business systems dynamically. Enable customer dashboard to provide sales order documents and processes for quotes, invoices, purchase orders, etc. Enable multilingual eCommerce capabilities with multi-lingual shipping and fulfillment integration. Export select products/categories to 3rd party resellers such as Amazon, eBay, etc. What SOA Does For eCommerce For the scenario above it would be realistic for any of the above steps or extensions to require partial or full rebuilds of a system if the system depends on a non-service-oriented architecture. Non-SOA results in code-based dependency and no separation of concerns within the application's core functions. Conversely, when extending an application the SOA enables an application to preserve core functions while still being able to "extend" to additional eCommerce needs. Under the Hood Let's take a look at an example in more detail - for the scenario where we go from a B2B eCommerce solution for a single domain to enabling a multi-store and then integrating to internal line of business and ERP/CRM systems the SOA is critical. The SOA by its nature enables "endpoints" that the ERP/CRM systems can "talk with" without developers having to "rebuild" or duplicate the application development necessary to interact with the eCommerce database and business logic. For example, when the eCommerce admin utility creates a new product it passes its data from a user interface that interacts with the site through a service—that exact same service can be called by the ERM/CRM integration layer to push new products into the eCommerce store. This effectively reduces overhead for the ERP/CRM integration by up to 60-70% in the development effort. Service-oriented architecture (SOA) is a software design and software architecture design pattern based on discrete pieces of software providing application functionality as services to other applications. This is known as service-orientation. It is independent of any vendor, product or technology. [Wikipedia] SOA eCommerce services may be reused and reorganized to implement new business processes, as the business needs change. Reusing the services lowers the time and cost of new business process development and increases flexibility while lightening the integration process with other business units and processes. Clarity Can Help To find out if this sort of B2B architecture is right for you and how it can be incorporated into your own B2B eCommerce definition, or if you need assistance with implementing SOA for eCommerce, contact us for a free quote today!