WebSphere Commerce Portal V5.4 Solutions

254 WebSphere Commerce Portal V5.4 Solutions

6.1 Development environment configuration options

This section describes an end-to-end approach for developing and testing

commerce enabled portal solutions, and includes the following topics:

򐂰 Motivation for an end-to-end development environment

򐂰 Solution overview for an end-to-end development environment

򐂰 Development environment configurations

򐂰 Hardware and software used in the development environment

6.1.1 Motivation for an end-to-end development environment

When WebSphere Commerce V5.4 was initially released in March 2002, the

official development tool included with WebSphere Commerce Studio was

VisualAge® for Java. In April 2003, WebSphere Commerce V5.4 officially gained

support for WebSphere Studio Application Developer V5 when using WebSphere

Commerce FixPak 5.4.0.5 and the corresponding WebSphere Commerce

WebSphere Studio Application Developer Toolkit. When using WebSphere

Studio Application Developer, developers can create, modify, and test

WebSphere Commerce JSPs, commands, and EJBs within one development

tool. The test environment uses the WebSphere Application Server V4.0.5

runtime within WebSphere Studio Application Developer 5.

WebSphere Portal V4.2.1 solutions are developed using the WebSphere Studio

Application Developer V5. Due to some restrictions within WebSphere Studio

Application Developer, a portal developer is only able to debug a portal

application when the WebSphere Application Server, Advanced Single Server

Edition V4 runtime is used.

The following capabilities are desirable when developing a commerce enabled

portal solution:

򐂰 An end-to-end development and test scenario to develop, test, and debug

commerce enabled portals including WebSphere Commerce code.

򐂰 Leverage the full WebSphere Studio Application Developer development

environment capabilities to develop and test stores including HTML,

commands, commerce portlets, commerce portlet JSP, and WAP WML JSPs

within the WebSphere Studio Application Developer Test Environment.

򐂰 Leverage the full WebSphere Application Developer Studio to develop, test,

and debug portlets.

򐂰 Simulate single sign-on to leverage the Commerce Enhancement Pack

functionality.

Chapter 6. Implement the development environment 255

The interaction flow in the commerce enabled portal end-to-end development

solution is summarized as follows:

1. The portal developer debugs the portal site using WebSphere Studio

Application Developer by using hooks into a commerce portlet for debugging.

2. The portlet communicates with the WebSphere Test Environment of

WebSphere Studio Application Developer while sending an HTTP URL

controller command to port 8080.

3. The WebSphere Test Environment receives the portlet request. The

environment is configured to stop if a request is recognized. The debugger is

started and the WebSphere Commerce developer is now able to debug the

code. The JSP debugger can be used by starting the tool and setting break

points in advance of the request for the JSP.

4. The URL controller command redirects to a JSP, which renders the

appropriate markup language. The JSP debugger can be used to follow the

generation process.

5. When the JSP compilation and execution completes, the response is passed

to the portlet.

6. The portal developer debugs the WebSphere Commerce response and

controls the portal rendering.

6.1.2 Solution overview for an end-to-end development environment

This section provides detailed information for identifying which changes are

necessary to achieve an end-to-end test and debug of commerce enabled portal

solutions. A brief overview of the solution is illustrated in Figure 6-1 on page 256.

Note: The WebSphere Studio Application Developer 5, WebSphere

Application Server V4.0.5 runtime environment does not support

WebSphere security settings and single sign-on services.

Note: The components of WebSphere Commerce development

environment and WebSphere Portal development environment can be

installed on the same machine or separate machines.

256 WebSphere Commerce Portal V5.4 Solutions

Figure 6-1 Enabling end-to-end testing

WebSphere Commerce

The developer is able to develop customized code and JSPs provided by

WebSphere Studio Application Developer. After installing and configuring the

Commerce Enhancement Pack, a developer is now able to develop commerce

enabled JSPs as well as business logic to serve HTML/WML portal request. The

WebSphere Test Environment remains unchanged.

Security and single sign-on services are not supported within the WebSphere

Studio Application Developer Test Environment (WebSphere Application Server

V4.0.5, Advanced Single Server Edition) but can be simulated. Therefore, the

WebSphere Commerce developer has to create users within the WebSphere

Commerce environment. In general, the developer uses the WebSphere

Commerce Administrator Console.

User authentication is based on the WebSphere Commerce services.

WebSphere Commerce offers the Logon URL controller command to authenticate

a user by the designated logonId and logonPassword. The command creates a

set of WebSphere Commerce cookies that authenticates/identifies the user.

JSP's

WebSphere Test Environment

for WebSphere Commerce

HTTP Listener

on port 8080

CMD's

RequestServlet

HTTP-Client

Session-

Object

Portlets

WebSphere Portal

First call to a WCS instance

commerce enabled portlets