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Click a letter in the glossary index. Or use the Page Down key, the Page Up key, the arrow keys, or the scroll bar to navigate. Please contact us if you encounter a relevant term that was not defined in this glossary.
- A -
- Advisor
- A BEA WebLogic Personalization Server (WLPS) component that gives personalized advice and recommends content. To do so, it invokes the User Management component to gather information from the user profile, submits that information to the Rules service, and queries the document management system that the Content Management component uses. Developers determine whether the Advisor displays the results of the query with a JSP page or a Java servlet.
- The Advisor includes a JSP tag library and an API that EJB developers can use to access the underlying EJB stateless session bean.
- applet
- A program written in Java that runs in a Java-enabled Web browser.
- application programming interface (API)
- A set of well-defined programming interfaces (that is, entry points, calling parameters, and returning values) by which one software program uses the services of another.
- authentication
- The process of determining whether someone or something is, in fact, who or what it is declared to be.
- authorization
- The granting of authority, which includes granting access based on access rights.
- B -
- B2B
- Business to Business
- B2C
- Business to Consumer
- BEA WebLogic Commerce Server (WLCS)
- A development kit for a Web application that displays product descriptions and manages customer orders. It includes a set of JSP templates, database schemas, Java components, and configuration files.
- BEA WebLogic Personalization Server (WLPS)
- A development kit for a Web application that features customized content delivery based on user profiles and business rules.
- BEA WebLogic Server (WLS)
- A Web application server that provides services for building and running e-commerce applications using the Java language and Sun Microsystems, Inc.'s J2EE platform, including EJB components. BEA WebLogic Commerce Server and Personalization Server run on WLS.
- C -
- Catalog Manager service
- Provides a single point of access to the other Commerce Server product catalog services: Category Manager service, Product Item Manager service, Custom Data Manager service, and Catalog Query Manager service.
- See also service
- Catalog Query Manager service
- Queries the Commerce Server product catalog. It defines two types of catalog searches: keyword search and attribute-based search. Keyword search is a simple search on a number of keywords, whereas attribute-based search allows a complex Boolean expression on any of the item attributes to be evaluated.
- See also service
- Category Manager service
- Manages the hierarchical structure of the Commerce Server product catalog. It defines a complex interface for creating and modifying the hierarchy and for mapping items into categories.
- See also service
- check out
- The interactive process in which a user confirms items to purchase and provides payment and shipping information. Commerce Server then validates the user information, posts the credit card transaction, and logs shipping and tax payment requirements. Check out uses services from the Registration and User Processing package and from the Order Processing package.
- Commerce Server
- See BEA WebLogic Commerce Server (WLCS)
- constructor
- A pseudo-method that creates an object. In the Java programming language, constructors re instance methods with the same name as their class. Constructors are invoked using the new keyword.
- Content Manager
- A key Personalization Server component that provides access to content via both JSP tags and EJBs. The JSP tags provide a developer with an enumeration of content objects by querying the content database directly using a search expression syntax. The content management tools are designed to be used with the rules manager and rules services, user profiles, and property set manager to create personalized content delivery on an e-commerce site. The primary interface to the functionality of the content management component is the ContentManager session bean.
- Custom Data Manager service
- Defines an interface for giving persistence to custom attributes of product items. (Custom attributes are attributes not defined in the ProductItem interface.)
- See also service
- Customer Profile service
- An implementation of business logic and presentation logic through which users modify their user profile.
- See also service
- D -
- deployment descriptor
- An XML file that supplies an EJB server with the information it requires to configure run-time properties for EJBs. It also enables the system administrator to define permissions on an EJB and to configure resources used by an EJB. Deployment descriptors conform to a Document Type Definition (DTD) provided by Sun Microsystems, Inc. JavaSoft.
- distributed application
- An application that is separated into two or more parts (such as a client and a server) on different computers that communicate through a network. Web applications are, by nature, distributed applications.
- document reference implementation
- The default, out-of-the-box document management solution of Personalization Server (WLPS). This implementation uses the BulkLoader utility to load content metadata into the database and the content schema into an XML file. It is one of many possible implementations of the WLPS Document Management Service Provider Interface (SPI) that you can use to integrate third-party document management systems into WLPS.
- E -
- Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB)
- A component architecture for building scalable, distributed, multitiered applications. EJBs leverage and extend the JavaBeans component model to provide a rich, object-oriented transactional environment for creating e-commerce applications.
- See also Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)
- entity bean
- An Enterprise JavaBean that represents persistent data in an underlying data store.
- extensible markup language (XML)
- A metalanguage (a language for describing languages) you can use to define customized markup languages. XML facilitates the development of user-defined document types and the creation of programs that can use data from the documents.
- F -
- F -
A Java servlet that receives all incoming HTTP requests for Commerce Server and Personalization Server and dispatches each request to the appropriate destination URL. It enables the hot deployment of applications within WebLogic Application Server. Webflow uses Flow Manager when resolving hyperlinks.
- G -
- group profile
- A collection of users or other groups. A group profile also contains a set of attributes, and each user or sub-group within the profile can inherit these attributes.
- See also User Management component
- See also user profile
- H -
- hot deployment
- Launching, or re-configuring and re-launching a Web application without restarting the Web application server.
- input processor
- A Commerce Server mechanism that handles form submission. Some input processors perform validation of customer data, but the primary role is to store customer data into the Pipeline session for subsequent use by a Pipeline component.
- I -
- instance variable
- Any item of data that is associated with a particular object. Each instance of a class has its own copy of the instance variables defined in the class.
- J -
- JAR files (.jar)
- Java Archive files. A file format used for aggregating many files into one file.
- See also Java
- Java
- An object-oriented programming language developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. A "write once, run anywhere" programming language.
- Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)
- An environment for developing and deploying distributed, scalable, enterprise-level applications designed to run on networks, the Internet, and the Web. The J2EE platform consists of a set of services, APIs, and protocols that provide the functionality for developing multitiered, Web-based applications. EJB technology is a key aspect of J2EE. The BEA WebLogic Commerce Server and Personalization Server are based on J2EE and EJB.
- See also Enterprise JavaBeans (EJB)
- Java Database Connectivity (JDBC)
- A JavaSoft specification for Java access to relational databases.
- Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI)
- A Java API standard for looking up objects and resources by name.
- Java scriptlet
- A JSP scripting element containing any code fragment that is valid in the scripting language used in the JSP page. The JSP specification describes what is a valid scriptlet for the case where the language page attribute is "java".
- Java servlet
- A server-side Java program that is usually executed in response to an HTTP request and produces its output in a browser.
- JavaServer Pages (JSP)
- A J2EE component for generating dynamic web page content.
- JSP tag
- A piece of text between a left angle bracket and a right angle bracket that is used in a JSP as part of a JSP element. The tag is distinguishable as markup, as opposed to data, because it is surrounded by angle brackets.
- JSP tag library
- A collection of tags that perform specialized tasks. You can import a JSP tag library into any JSP and use the associated tags with various scripting languages.
- JSP template
- A JSP that demonstrates Commerce Server and Personalization Server features. You can modify these templates to meet your business needs and use them as a model for developing your own site.
- K -
(No terms starting with the letter "K")
- L -
- Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
- A standard for accessing and searching collections (directories) of information, such as names, phone numbers, and billing addresses, that reside in a database or on a server.
- literal
- The basic representation of any integer, floating point, or character value. For example, 3.0 is a double-precision floating point literal, and "a" is a character literal.
- M -
(No terms starting with the letter "M")
- N -
(No terms starting with the letter "N")
- O -
Order Processing package
The combination of the following Commerce Server services: shopping cart, shipping, payment, taxation, and order summary/confirmation.
- orphaned item
- A item in the product catalog that is not associated with any category.
- P -
- Payment service
- An implementation of business logic and presentation logic that specifies how Commerce Server authorizes, settles, and transfers payments.
- See also service
- persistence
- A process that saves information or state that would otherwise be transient.
- personalization advisor
- See Advisor
- Personalization Server
- See BEA WebLogic Personalization Server (WLPS)
- Pipeline
- A mechanism for binding a sequence of services into a single named service. Commerce Server uses Pipelines to manage the processing of business data.
- Pipeline component
- A discrete unit of server-side business logic used for such tasks as calculating tax payments or committing an order. Using the pipeline.properties file, you can combine a sequence of Pipeline components to form a Pipeline.
- Pipeline session
- A storage location for information about the current session (such as the current shopping cart) or more transient data (such as error messages about a customer's most recent input).
- pipeline.properties file
- A text file that configures one or more Pipelines.
- portal
- Access to an information network and a set of services via the World Wide Web. The network can be as broad as the Internet or restricted to an intranet. Personalization Server provides tools for creating portals and portlets.
- portlet
- From the end-user perspective, a portlet is a specialized content area that occupies a small window of a portal page. For example, a portlet contains travel itineraries, business news, local weather, or sports scores. The user can personalize the content, appearance, and position of the portlet according to preferences that an administrator sets. The user can also edit, maximize, minimize, or float the portlet window.
- From a server application perspective, a portlet is a component, implemented as a JSP, that defines static and dynamic content for a specific subject (weather, business news, etc.) in a portal page. The portlet JSP generates HTML by accessing data entities or content adapters on the server.
- Personalization Server provides tools for creating portals and portlets.
- product catalog
- The collection of the following WebLogic Commerce Server features:
- A database schema based on the Dublin Core Open Standard
- A bulk loader program called DBLoader
- Browser-based administration screens
- JSP templates
- An Application Programming Interface (API)
- Product Item Manager
- A service that creates, gets, updates, and deletes items within the Commerce Server catalog.
- properties
- See property set management
- property set management
- A Commerce Server and Personalization Server component you can use to name properties and group them into property sets, which you can also name. Properties represent the attributes of an object. For example, "backgroundColor" is a property of an HTML page.
- When you create a property, you specify the type of attribute value (for example, text, integer, date/time), whether it defines multiple or single values, whether it restricts values to a certain set, and a default value. You can create property sets based on the following types: User/Group, Session, and Request.
- You can apply named properties and property sets to users and groups, HTTP sessions and HTTP requests (wrapped by a ConfigurableEntity component), or content that is accessible from the Content Manager. However, property sets do not manage content; the document loader utility, or a third-party content management tool, manages content metadata.
- For example, site developers want users to be able to specify different background colors for each of their portals. By creating portal A and portal B property sets, the property backgroundColor can exist for both portal A and portal B. While the two backgroundColor properties have the same name, they could have the same or different definitions.
- See also Content Manager
- property sets
- See property set management
- Q -
(No terms starting with the letter "Q")
- R -
- reference implementation
- See document reference implementation
- Registration and Login service
- An implementation of business logic and presentation logic through which users create a user profile and authenticate with the Commerce Server and Personalization Server.
- See also service
- Registration and User Processing package
- The collection of Commerce Server registration, login, and customer-profile services. It also includes a set of JSPs through which users can check the status and history of their orders, and a set of APIs that developers can use to create other services.
- repository directory
- A directory that contains shared resources such as images and portlet JSPs. You specify the repository directory during Java servlet registration.
- rule set
- An XML file that contains Personalization Server rules. All rules are either of the type ContentSelector or Classifier, and each rule set may have zero or more rules. Rule sets use properties from a property set to evaluate user and group profiles.
- See also rules editor
- rules editor
- An HTML-based editor for creating and editing a structured system of Personalization Server business rules. The rules are used with user profiles to personalize the content delivery of an e-commerce site. The output of the rules editor is a rule set, stored in XML.
- S -
- service
- Data processing and storage, data interchange, or data presentation that a Web application provides. For example, the Shipping service records the shipping information related to a customer's order, calculates shipping costs, and tracks the shipping status of an order.
- session bean
- A non-persistent, server-side object that implements business logic. A session bean can be thought of as a logical extension of the client that runs on the server. A session bean is not shared among multiple clients.
- Shipping service
- An implementation of business logic and presentation logic that records the shipping information related to a customer's order, calculates shipping costs, and tracks the shipping status of an order.
- See also service
- Shopping Cart Management service
- An implementation of business logic and presentation logic in WebLogic Commerce Server that shows users the items they have selected for purchase. Users can start the payment process from the shopping cart.
- splitting preference
- An option available from the WebLogic Commerce Server JSP templates. With this option, users determine whether they want individual items they have purchased to be shipped to them as soon as they are available, even if it requires multiple shipments, or for the shipment to wait until all items are available. After users confirm their preference, the Pipeline session commits it to the database.
- stateful session bean
- A session bean with a conversational state.
- stateless session bean
- A session bean with no conversational state. All instances of stateless session beans are identical.
- static
- A Java programming language keyword that defines a variable as a class variable. Classes maintain one copy of class variables regardless of how many instances exist of that class. "static" can also be used to define a method as a class method. Class methods are invoked by the class instead of a specific instance, and can only operate on class variables.
- T -
- Taxation service
- An implementation of business logic and presentation logic that interfaces with TAXWARE to calculate the taxes due for a customer's order.
- See also service
- time to live (TTL)
- The length of time an item is cached.
- U -
- unified user profile (UUP)
- The aggregation of user properties that WebLogic Personalization Server (WLPS) gathers from its database tables and from other data sources. For example, WLPS can combine user properties from the Personalization Server database with user properties from an LDAP server into a unified user profile. Developers and system users do not need to worry about the different underlying data sources because the unified user profile provides a single location from which to find user information. The UUP is an extension of the BEA WebLogic User component.
- User Management component
- A set of JSP tags, EJBs, and tools that facilitate the creation and persistence of user and group profile properties. It provides access to user profile information within BEA WebLogic Commerce Server and Personalization Server. The User Manager component also provides user-authentication mechanisms and user-to-group associations.
- user profile
- A set of name/value attribute pairs that are associated with a user or a group.
- See also User Management component
- User Processing package
- See Registration and Login service
- V -
(No terms starting with the letter "V")
- W -
- Web application (Webapp)
- Groups of server-side Web resources that make up an interactive online application. The Web resources include Java servlets, JSPs, static documents (such as HTML documents), and applets that can be deployed in a client Web browser. Web applications must run in the context of a Web application server. BEA WebLogic Commerce Server and Personalization Server are packaged as Web applications.
- Web application server
- Software that enables Web applications to exchange data with the back-end systems and databases of e-businesses. BEA WebLogic is a Web application server.
- Webflow
- A mechanism that controls the flow of a user session. Personalization Server uses Webflow to dispatch a target destination. Commerce Server uses Webflow to determine which pages it displays in a Web browser and which pieces of business logic it executes. The webflow.properties file configures Webflow for the Commerce Server.
- webflow.properties file
- A text file that configures Webflow for Commerce Server, controlling the order in which your site's Web pages are displayed and initiating the execution of the business logic that is associated with them. It contains one section for each JSP template and includes comments for increased readability.
- WebLogic Server (WLS)
- See BEA WebLogic Server (WLS)
- web.xml file
- See deployment descriptor
- X -
- XML
- See extensible markup language (XML)
- Y -
(No terms starting with the letter "Y")
- Z -
(No terms starting with the letter "Z")
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