Commerce Server 2007 Staging – How To

How to set up staging

The procedure of defining staging were presented by using the Staging MMC Console (UI way)

a) StartAll ProgramsMicrosoft Commerce Server 2007Commerce Server Staging

b) Create a new Project with a Wizard (you have to have admin privileges to do that)

c) Enter name of staging project

d) Choose what is the subject of staging: site stuff (would pack all the web site related pages, controls etc) or business data (product catalogues, marketing data)

CSS does not support staging of the following data:

• Inventory data or inventory schema changes.
  
• Profiles or profile schema changes.
  
• Direct mailer jobs, lists, or configuration.
  
• Profile encryption keys.
  
• SSL certificates.

e) Project source is very confusing step for me because it mentions some temporary storage location in description. The path you would typically enter here is the path to the folder containing your CS Site which is in case of starter site by default, this is C:InetpubwwwrootStarterSite

f) Choosing a staging destination from a list of predefined destination or we have to create a new on

g) There are 3 types of destination: remote server, route and local server

End point server defines any remote server base storage destination

A route in CSS defines one or more destination servers during the site deployment. e.g. if you would like to publish your changes to multiple predefined location route is the solution. Routes are especially useful when you use the same source and destination servers for multiple staging projects.

Important note: If you create a route, you must manually create it on every server specified in the route

To store data on local server just enter an existing local path

h) The project schedule page is the page where we can schedule recursive staging occurrence and we can select automatic deployment of Content upon the change (something similar to file watch observing the file changes)

e) The recursive options provided by scheduler of CS2007 are based on Windows scheduler engine with a bunch of self explanatory options

f) Finally the last step includes summary screen where we need only to press Finnish button

How to use created staging project

It is easy. Just right click the newly created project and pick the run option

Concept of staging in Commerce Server 2007 supports Rollback activity, but is important to notice here that the rollback would be applied only on Content (site items: pages etc) and not on Business Data (catalogue data and marketing where there is no possibility of roll back once data are been created on destination

Status

To verify the complete status of the staging take a look at Status field on the same panel, which would show Complete once staging would be completed

Reports

To get more detail report about staging process chose one of the project reports in the left panel

Properties

If you would right click the project name on the right panel and pick properties

you would be presented with a property screen where you can set up various things regarding commerce server including the:

Filter setting

where you can define which files (or folders)  you want to exclude/include from staging

Scripts

where you can define which VBScript files should be executed before and after the certain staging events

 

Troubleshooting staging

Staging component is not been install by default.

You have to check Staging component during the installation process. If you already finished installation rerun the installation process again.

Check that Commerce Server Staging windows service is started after.

Running the staging installation produces
"The commerce server service connection point failed to install. Would you like to continue?"

If you happened to have next error message presented during the installation:

The commerce server service connection point failed to install. Would you like to continue?

Solution: Click on Yes

(The connection point is not used by anything within Commerce Server. It's only purpose in life is to identify a computer within AD has having Commerce Server installed.)

Running the CSConfig produces
"ASP is not enabled on this web server ..."

If you decide to rerun the CSConfig.exe file (located by default in c:Program FilesMicrosoft Commerce Server 2007)  with a /F (force) switch you could see next error screen 

 

Obviously the reason is that on your IIS server ASP 3.0 extensions are not allowed and CSS uses some VBScript based packaging functions so it can not operates without it

Solution is:

a) StartRuninetmgr

b) Click Web Services extension in the left panel

c) Highlight Active Server Pages in right panel

d) Click on Allow button

 

Trying to save staging project produces event id 6102 error "Access Denied"

Resolution:

Rerun the Commerce server configuration tool which would set appropriate account to be used for staging service.

If the Commerce Server would be installed in D:CS2007 path running the configuration tool would be

Start=>Run=>D:CS2007CSConfig.exe /f

Trying to see some of Staging Event Reports return 404  Page not found

If you are seeing this

To resolve this issue rerun the CS configuration and check the creation of virtual folders

If the Commerce Server would be installed in D:CS2007 path running the configuration tool would be

Start=>Run=>D:CS2007CSConfig.exe /f

Check the "Create an IIS Virtual Root for Staging (used to generate reports" option

Commerce Server 2007 Developer Boot Camp – Day 1

Module 1 - Microsoft Commerce Server Overview

Components 

Max recommended taking a look at the  "Technical architectural overview of the CS2007" slides done by David Messner  on Microsoft TechEd 2007

can be found on  Commerce Server 2007 Architecture Slides (pdf)

IT Roles

There's a diagram illustrating IT roles with interest areas

There are six main roles that will interact with the different activities that take part in Commerce Server 2007.

Customer

Commerce Server 2007 provides a highly scalable, high-performance e-commerce platform that gives customers a complete, personalized online shopping experience through any medium that can be delivered using Web client technologies.

Business users

Commerce Server 2007 provides four Microsoft Windows Smart Client Web Services–enabled applications to provide business managers with the tools for managing the daily operations that are associated with catalogs, marketing campaigns, direct mail campaigns, and more.

Developer

Commerce Server 2007 extends the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 and Visual Studio development platforms to make easier the rapid development of e-commerce and related applications. Commerce Server provides the tools for customizing each integrated system:

· Catalog and Inventory System

· Profiles System

· Customer and Orders System

· Marketing System

· Business Processing Pipeline System

IT professionals

Commerce Server 2007 provides several tools for systems administrators and operations personnel to quickly deploy, administer, manage, and monitor the health of the enterprise network. Additionally, with site staging and replication, you can automate the distribution and movement of data and sites across multiple environments.

Business analysts

Commerce Server 2007 provides complete business analysis and reporting capabilities in an integrated, end-to-end view encapsulating both the Web click stream and e-commerce business data—such as catalogs, customers, and orders—through its integration with Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 Reporting Services and inclusion of pre-packaged reports.

LOB and trading partner integration

Commerce Server 2007 enables seamless connection to internal and partner applications and systems such as Microsoft Dynamics™, SAP, JD Edwards, and other companies through BizTalk Server adapters. In addition, with the new BizTalk Server adapters for the Profiles, Customer and Orders, and Catalog and Inventory Systems, Commerce Server 2007 helps accelerate and automate the delivery of products and services.

Some interesting performance related data

Commerce Server 2007 Performance Guide Document defines results received by Commerce Server team doing the performance testing against the Starter Site. Some of the data presented to us which are not in that document (check that)  which also illustrates the impressive performance of Commerce Server 2007 are:

· Top-10 retail-oriented catalog scenarios

· 15+ catalog/virtual catalog mix on live site

· 2,500+ categories/catalog for 37.5 K+ categories live

· 250 K+ products/catalog for 3.75 M+ products live

· 250+ variants/product for 937 M SKUs live

· 600–1,200 campaigns w/2 M coupons active

· 60 M user profiles

· 10 GB/hour Data Warehouse import

· 100,000 orders/day (11-hour peak) with 500 concurrent users on 2 clients with MS SQL 2005 32 bit

· 700,000 orders/day (11-hour peak) with 500 concurrent users on 2 clients with MS SQL 2005 64 bit

On 5-10 client machines with 500 concurrent users results with Imports on every 20 minutes of 1000 SKU

- 4 order/sec peak (SQL Server 2005 32 bit)

- 11 order/sec peak (SQL Server 2005 64 bit)

Editions

There are 3 main Commerce server 2007 editions: developer, standard and enterprise.

Developer edition is basically enterprise edition but limited to 10 connections, free for development and download

Not supported functionality

Commerce Server 2007 removes the following functionality:

· Predictor and segment viewer (only a few customers in whole world used that and SQL Server 2005 Business logic now contain that)

· Catalog Element–centric import and export Extensible Markup Language (XML) of Commerce Server 2000 XML schemas

· Catalog XML-Data Reduced (XDR) support

· Microsoft Site Server 3.0 Pipeline components and migration objects

Additionally, Commerce Server 2007 no longer supports Active Server Pages (ASP) development or any versions of the Microsoft .NET Framework earlier than version 2.0. You can build Commerce Server 2007 applications only on Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0.

Different Types of Commerce Server 2007 APIs

There are basically two main types of accessing the CS API: WebServices (asmx) vs Agent APIs

Web Services: not WS* compliant. Inheriting and overriding web service method implementations allows extensibility of web services, Fiddler - HTTP spy  could be used for WS XML message debugging and spying

Standard install document recommends installing SelfSSL certificate from IIS6 Admin Pack, but according to Max there are two issues with that:

• When a certificate is not been accepted as trusted
• When a CS Admin Db is installed on SqlExpress

He recommended using temporary VeriSign SSL certificate which is usable for CS 2007 developing purposes even after its trial period of two weeks would expire

 

Module 2 - Deploying Commerce Server

Hardware requirements

Minimal hardware requirements are pretty modest an they include:

• A 1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster processor
• 1024 MB of RAM
• 9 GB of storage space
• CD or DVD drive
• One 10 Mbps or faster NIC

Software requirements

Windows 2003 Standard and Enterprise edition (including the x64 versions fully supported)

Windows 2003 Web Edition - supports all features except data warehouse and requires separate box for SQL Server

Windows XP SP2 - Can be used for development too (look at Max post: PUT_HERE_POST_LINK)

Security requirements

You have to have administrator privileges on computer where you want to install Commerce Server 2007 and the Commerce Server 2007 Business Management applications. Log on to the operating system under a user account that has local administrator permissions.

To differ the user privileges you can assign the user to some specific role such as CatalogPropertyEditor or you can add the user account to business administrator groups: MarketingAdministrator or OrderAdministrator to give them access to all the parts

Commerce Server 2007 relies on roles based access control which management tool is Authorization Manager (Start>Run>azman.msc)

Besides AzMan, Commerce server support ASP NET 2.0 Membership provider which is recommended way of supporting customer authentication

The rest of the module were dedicated to the procedure of how to install Commerce Server 2007 which I plan to cover in a separate post so I won't waste time here.

Installation from command prompt

The following are some examples of running Setup.exe command-line options.

· To install Commerce Server, run:
setup.exe /l %systemdrive%install.log /ADDLOCAL ALL /PRODUCT CommerceServer /passive /norestart

· To install Commerce Server Business Management applications, run:
setup.exe /l %systemdrive%install.log /ADDLOCAL ALL /PRODUCT CSUI /passive /norestart

· To install Commerce Server 2007 adapters for BizTalk Server 2006, run:
setup.exe /l %systemdrive%install.log /ADDLOCAL ALL /PRODUCT CSBTSAdapters /passive /norestart

Very useful installation scripts

Wade Wegner published on his blog 3 very useful posts about how to automate processes which usually are taking most of the time during installation. We were using some of those scripts in our labs and they are precious

Script permission updates for Commerce Server 2007

This script assigns the write permissions to the Catalog Web service, the Temporary ASP.NET folder, and the Windows Temporary folder.  These permission allow you to run the Business User applications through the Business Management Web services.

if you need to do choose during the install manual

Script the creation and assignment of Windows groups for Commerce Server

Here's another little script that helps with the installation of Commerce Server 2007 (perhaps when I'm all done, I'll consolidate them all into an uber-script).  This script creates the Business Management Administrator Windows groups, which are used to control authorization roles within the Authorization Manager.

This script creates four Windows groups (CatalogAdminGroup, MarketingAdminGroup, ProfilesAdminGroup, and OrdersAdminGroup) and then assigns users to those groups.

Script the creation of SQL logins and role assignments for Commerce Server 2007

One of the more manually intense steps in the installation of Commerce Server is setting up the appropriate SQL logins and Database Role User Mapping.  This task can easily take 30 - 60 minutes to complete if done manually.  Furthermore, it's likely that this is the easiest step to make a mistake, which will cause problems for you down the road.

So, to make this process quicker and less prone to errors, I've created an SQL script that you can run against your database.  This script performs two tasks:

1. Creates the SQL login accounts (e.g. COMPUTERNAMECatalogWebSvc).
2. Associates the SQL login accounts to database roles.

Secure Commerce Server 2007 Tool

To secure Commerce Server sites on the fastest way you can use Secure Commerce Server 2007 Tool written by Max Akbar which would on the fastest way set up all the security related settings required for Commerce Server 2007 to work

Another interesting tool which should be used in case we would like to see content of some site package file (pup) is PUP Viewer for Commerce Server 2007

Module 3 - Managing and Monitoring Commerce Server 2007

There are couple of tools built to enable management and monitoring of the Commerce Server:

Commerce Server Manager.

Use Commerce Server Manager to manage and configure Commerce Server resources, sites, applications, and Web servers. This tool provides a common framework for managing Web sites in a single, integrated interface. MMC hosts Commerce Server Manager.

Commerce Server Staging.

A new system for Commerce Server 2007, CSS provides a complete end-to-end solution for configuration, content, and business data staging. By using CSS, you can deploy or stage your business data and Web site content from your development environment to your production environment.

Profiles Schema Manager.

Use to collect, track, and store data from and about customers by creating data sources, profile definitions, and site terms. Create profile definitions and properties to collect customer and business data, such as organizations, customer accounts, purchase orders, requisitions, and product properties from your Commerce Server Web site.

Commerce Server Health Monitoring Service.

A new Windows service in Commerce Server 2007, Health Monitoring Service monitors the state of your Commerce Server Web services and applications. It works with Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005 and the Commerce Server 2007 MOM Pack.

VSS Writer service.

 A new Windows service in Commerce Server 2007, VSS Writer provides extra functionality for backup and restore of Commerce Server through the Windows Volume Shadow Copy Service framework.

Commerce Server Best Practices Analyzer.

A new tool that supports Commerce Server deployments, the Best Practices Analyzer performs configuration-level verification by gathering data from Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) classes, SQL Server databases, registry entries, and other parts of your deployment. The Best Practices Analyzer uses the gathered data to determine whether best practices are being followed and generates several reports.

Performance measurement - best practices:

• Monitor interval should be 3-5 seconds.
• Turn off screen saver.
• Turn of not needed services
• Run System Monitor from remote computer
• Monitor only the counters really needed (don't monitor too much of them)

Performance counter:

For the certain pipeline counters you have to run pipeline first before defining counters you could pick the right instance to monitor. Others counters are specific per app domain.

Several unique resources exist for Commerce Server 2007.

MSDN

The Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) contains information about Commerce Server and other .NET Enterprise Servers. You may find it helpful to visit this site regularly. Search MSDN for Commerce Server to find related documents and white papers. http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnanchor/html/commerceserver.asp

Commerce Server Partner SDK

The Partner SDK contains technical information for developers who create programs or intelligent Web pages that must integrate with the Commerce Server API. The Partner SDK contains a guide for programmers and references to various Commerce Server and commerce technologies. It also includes examples and header files that you can use to create your own programs. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=CCBDAD9A-AB38-46C3-9667-9BFCEEDBBE88&displaylang=en

Microsoft TechNet

TechNet contains technical information and tools that are designed to help you plan, develop, deploy, and manage your e-commerce Web sites. For information about Commerce Server, select TechCenters on the top of the screen and then select Commerce Server. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/comm/default.mspx

MSDN Forums

Peer-to-peer Forum gives you a chance to talk about Commerce Server with other administrators, developers, and Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs). Microsoft does not monitor or support the content of these newsgroups or sites. http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/default.aspx?forumgroupid=294&SiteID=1

Microsoft Support

Commerce Server Support lists support options available for Commerce Server. http://www.microsoft.com/commerceserver/support/default.mspx.

According to Max Akbar words PSS support cost ~$125 per hour and in case you are reporting the real bug, calls are for free

Catalog System Roles

CatalogAdministrator, Members can manage the Catalog System.

CatalogViewer, Members have read access to the Catalog System.

CatalogManager, Members can manage all the catalogs in the Catalog System.

SchemaManager, Members can manage the Catalog and Inventory Schema. This includes property, category, and product definitions.

CatalogSetsAdministrator, Members can manage all the catalog sets.

CatalogSetsViewer, Members can view all the catalog sets in the Catalog System.

InventoryAdministrator, Members can manage the Inventory System.

InventoryViewer, Members can view all the catalogs in the Inventory System.

InventorySynchronizationManager, Members can synchronize the run-time Inventory System with the management system.

Administrator, Members can manage the Catalog and Inventory Systems.

Order System Roles

OrdersAdministrator, Members can manage data integrity and cleanup issues.

OrdersConfigurationEditor, Members can manage order configuration data for the site.

OrdersViewer, embers have read access to view orders.

OrdersAdapter, Members can search orders for order processing and updates.

Profile System Roles

ProfileAdministrator, Members have complete access to the Profiles System.

ProfileWriter_BusinessManager, Members of this scope-level role have access to the profile that is in the scope.

ProfileWriter_CSR, Members of this scope-level role have access to the profile that is in the scope.

ProfileWriter_Adapter, Members of this scope-level role have access to the profile that is in the scope.

Transaction Cost Analyst (TCA) for CS 2007.

Capacity planning for CS2007 - we should measure TCA the 1000 users/site and then recommend based upon that that  hardware to get 3x output. Calculations are based on a pre measured  results of a starter site

Commerce Server Capacity Planning Tool

The Commerce Server Capacity Planning Tool helps to determine and rate your server performance, scalability, and flexibility in order to optimize your environment.

Commerce Server Capacity Planning Tool

 

Module 4 - Staging Content in Commerce Server

Max said that this diagram is not correct because the Testing phase should be between the Development and Staging

I've made a separate blog on material related to staging presented on boot camp and posted it on Commerce Server 2007 Staging - How To

Summary

First day of the boot camp was very use full for people not too much familiar with Commerce Server 2007 product to get a general understanding on how this eCommerce platform is great. We have been presented some really decision making useful facts and we learned how to install and set up commerce server environment

Commerce Server 2007 Developer Boot Camp – Intro

Microsoft Developer Platform Evangelism division was so kind to invite all the developers (and others) interested in Commerce Server 2007 to came to 3 day training boot camp here in Redmond, from June 12th - June 14th. The training material are presented by the Max Akbar, which blog is one of the most useful source of information on Commerce Server 2007 I could found. The boot camp is organized into the modules with the hands on labs at the end of the module. All the presented material is recorded on a DVD so the participants could watch them after the boot camp. I'll be capturing some of the interesting moments from the boot camp and publish it on the blog for all of you who missed the camp.

Max Akbar is not working in Microsoft anymore

Started pretty shocking by announcement of Max Akbar that he left the Microsoft and joined the  Extreme consultants. Max already made that announcement on his blog Max leaving the Microsoft but I saw a lot of people were really surprised. Max would continue to cooperate with his ex CS team as an external consultant. He would continue to blog on his MSDN blog address he owned before. He is currently working on a set of web casts (8 hours/each), where each one would cover certain area of  CS 2007. Beside the typical L200 stuff those web casts would contain  a lot of advanced things such as workflow integration etc
I'm really impressed with the amount of knowledge Max has about Commerce Server 2007 and I'm even more impressed with the kindness and willing he showed. A great add on to Extreme consultants! 

Boot camp agenda

Day 1

Module 1, Microsoft Commerce Server 2007 Overview,

provides a high-level overview of Commerce Server 2007. This includes identifying the features that are provided with each available Commerce Server edition, the architecture of Commerce Server, and the common tasks for any given role.

Module 2, Deploying Commerce Server 2007,

provides the prerequisite hardware and software requirements to deploy Commerce Server 2007. It also provides the steps for completing the deployment and recommend best practices for deployment.

Module 3, Managing and Monitoring Commerce Server 2007,

takes the student into the frontline tools that must be understood to perform day-to-day operations and the managing and monitoring of the components that enable Commerce Server to work efficiently.

Module 4, Staging Content in Commerce Server 2007,

discusses how to stage content in Commerce Server. Staging content involves moving the application from development, to the test environment, and finally to the production environment. The tools and process used in staging content are described in this module.

Module 5, Securing Commerce Server 2007 Solutions,

provides information about how to help secure Commerce Server solutions. The tools and steps for completing the tasks associated with helping to secure Commerce Server are also covered. In addition, the security best practices are presented.

Day 2

Module 6, Developing Commerce Server 2007 Applications,

provides an introduction into the Commerce Server development process. The module describes the high-level steps in the development process for creating a Commerce Server–based application.

Module 7, Developing the Catalog System,

provides an overview of the development tasks associated with the Catalog System. The module contains a description of the development tasks and code examples for using the Catalog System APIs.

Module 8, Developing the Inventory System,

provides an overview of the development tasks associated with the Inventory System. The module contains a description of the development tasks and code examples for using the Inventory System APIs.

Module 9, Developing the Profiles System,

provides an overview of the development tasks associated with the Profiles System. The module contains a description of the development tasks and code examples for using the Profiles System APIs.

Module 10, Developing the Orders System,

provides an overview of the development tasks associated with the Orders System. The module contains a description of the development tasks and code examples for using the Orders System APIs.

Module 11, Developing the Marketing System,

provides an overview of the development tasks associated with the Marketing System. The module contains a description of the development tasks and code examples for using the Marketing System APIs.

Day 3

Module 12, Integrating Commerce Server 2007 with Other Line of Business (LOB) Systems,

discusses the process for integrating Commerce Server with other LOB systems by using BizTalk Server 2006 adapters. The module discusses how to use BizTalk Server adapters to create workflow orchestrations and data transferal between Commerce Server and other systems.

Module 13, Migrating from Earlier Versions of Commerce Server,

describes the methods and processes to use to upgrade from earlier versions of Commerce Server (including Commerce Server 2002 and Commerce Server 2000). The module discusses how to use the Commerce Server Migration Wizard to help in the migration process.

Module 14, Developing the Data Warehouse and Analytics System,

provides the information that you must have to customize the Data Warehouse and Analytics System in Commerce Server. The module covers the managing of the Data Warehouse and Analytics System components, the processes for importing data into the Data Warehouse and Analytics System, and developing reports for the Data Warehouse and Analytics System.

Module 15, Customizing the Commerce Server 2007 Business Management Applications,

provides an overview of how to customize Commerce Server business management applications by using the Partner (SDK). This module discusses the common customizations made to the Commerce Server business management applications for most organizations. The module also discusses the customizations to the Commerce Server business management applications performed by Adventure Works, based on the business and technical requirements in the Adventure Works scenario.

 

Commerce Server Resources

Commerce Server Pre-Training Resources

Commerce Server bloggers:

• Max Akbar
• Andy Xu
• David Messner
• Jeff Lynch
• Nihit Kaul
• Ryan Donovan
• Vinayak Tadas
• Alan Faulkner
• Tom Schultz
• Vinod Kumar
• Commerce Team Blog
• RockstarGuys

Commerce Server resources:

• Commerce Server on GotDotNET
• Commerce Server on Microsoft.com
• Commerce Server on MSDN
• Commerce Server on TechNet
• Commerce Server 2007 product documentation
• Commerce Server Newsgroups
• Commerce Server Forums
• Commerce Server 207 docs on MSDN2