BALLETTEACHING BLOG

I. Introduction
Nowadays, electronic commerce has grown flourishingly on the Internet. At the same time, business behavior on the Internet also increases dramatically. Therefore, how to handle such large amount of information becomes an important task for a website manager. Especially like the big enterprise which has to receive many customer orders everyday, such as Amazon.com, or the website which is full of interaction, such as e-Bay.com, all need a functional system to manage the information. The system to collect the information and organize it into databases is called database management system (DBMS). Database management system also responses to transfer information between Business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), consumer-to-consumer (C2C), consumer-to-government (C2G), business-to-government (B2G), and government-to-government (G2G). To achieve a successful electronic commerce business, it is important to be aware of the functions of a database management system, software techniques which applied on the construction of an electronic commerce business, and future prospects.

II. Functions of a database management system
Awareness of the functions of a database management system is indispensable for constructing a successful electronic commerce business. Even thought there are many kinds of database management systems, most of them have the same functions. First of all, the front work in a database management system is called the customer order system. Next, the database management system must provide a functional system for a stock management. Another important function which connects a database management system and the business provider is the provider system. These three are the main functions which organize and integrate the whole database management system.
The customer order system which connects the customers and the electronic business is one function of a database management system that can lead to a successful electronic commerce business. To connect the customers and the electronic business tightly, this system must provide three sub-functions. The first main sub-function for the customer order system is to collect orders from customers. After receiving orders, the website must send them to a database management system in real time. The real-time system can help the database management system by continually receiving changing data from customers and processing the data rapidly. Another sub-function of a customer order system is to provide space for customers to exchange opinions with the electronic business. Then, the third sub-function of a customer order system is the after-sale service management system. This system helps the database management system collect maintenance records of products and customers’ information. Not only do these three sub-functions of customer order system organize the database management system, but they also help enterprises manage information from customers more easily.
The second function of the database management system of a successful electronic commerce business is stock management system. This system receives customer data from the customer order system and connects the electronic business and the provider business. There are also three sub-functions deeply influencing a successful electronic commerce business. The first sub-function of the stock management system is to make arrangements for customers’ orders. The arrangements must include an information-input system and detailed delivery lists after receiving customer data. Like the customer order system, the process of the arrangements should be also in real time. The second sub-function of a stock management system is to provide a system for electronic business to inquire about product stock. This system is concerned with whether the electronic business can deliver its products to customers on term or not. The third sub-function of a stock management system is the supply chain management system. Good supply chain management will help the provider business to get the best statistics, regularly check stocks, and forecast. A stock management system is indispensable to an electronic commerce business. However, a successful electronic commerce business should not just “have” a stock management system. The stock management system must be organized.
A provider system is another important part of a database management system. This system determines if the electronic business and the provider business will communicate well or not. There are three sub-functions for a provider system of a successful electronic commerce business. The first is to provide the provider business a database system to monitor their product stocks. Unlike the stock management system, an electronic commerce website must arrange ID-accounts and passwords to provider businesses. The second sub-function of a provider system is to make order lists for provider businesses. Depending on the customers’ orders and the supply chain management system of the stock management system, the electronic commerce enterprises must make order lists periodically. After that, the electronic commerce enterprises may use e-mail or other safe electronic data interchange (EDI) to transfer orders. The third sub-function of a provider system is to provide space for providers to exchange opinions. The providers’ opinions are same important as the customers’. After gathering the information from providers and customers in the database management system, the electronic commerce business also can provide a board of common Q&A. A provider system is a pivot for a successful electronic commerce business. It supports the supply chain of the whole electronic commerce business.
The customer order system, the stock management system, and the provider system are three facts of a database management system which a successful electronic commerce website constructor should be aware of. According to Deloitte Research and Forrester Research in 2003, business-to business (B2B) electronic commerce marketplace volume will reach U.S.$1.4 trillion (Slyke, 2003). Therefore, the competition between enterprises will become more and more violent. How to increase profit is becoming very important. Not only must enterprises put these functions into their database management system, but they must also make it organized.

III. Software of a database management system
Selecting functional and suitable software functions for a database management system is a matter needing attention for a successful electronic commerce business. Suitable web server software provides a database management system an environment to communicate with both internal computer resources and the Internet. Database management software is a key element of a database management system to process both business-to-business and business-to-consumer transactions. Then, security software prevents unauthorized access to computing resources. These three primary kinds of software are required to achieve a successful electronic commerce business.
For a high-quality web business, it is important to select proper web server software. There are six key elements in selecting proper web server software for a successful electronic commerce business. First of all, web server software must have a preemptive multitasking function. Simply speaking, preemptive multitasking lets a computer execute different application programs at the same time. The second element is high-memory management. For example, WinNT is a 32-bit operation system, and this memory allows people to save more than 4GB in the DOS system of WinNT. This is much more than the 640K memory of traditional DOS system. The third software element is portability. Not only should the web server software install on Intel hosts, but it should also install on the other kinds of hosts, which support RISC the same as Intel hosts, such as DEC Alpha AXP, Power PC, and MIPS R4400 (Trepper, 2000). The fourth quality of software is scalability, meaning that web server software must have the ability to manage large amounts of data on multiple CPU hosts. The fifth software element is security. Web server software must be secure enough to keep the information in database management system secure. The last software element is fault-tolerance. Web server software must support fault-tolerant protection, like disk mirroring, disk stripping with parity, and UPS.
Database software is another type of software to support a successful electronic commerce business. The database software that enterprises choose must have four qualities. The first quality is that the database management software must have an integrated and optimum file structure, which means one file contains all the functions of the program relating to database software. The second quality is to allow a complicated information list name. Database software must allow people to use at least 64-bit names, spaces, periods, exclamation marks, or other characters on topics and titles. The third quality is standardization. Database software must have standard and identical computer wording and key words. The last quality is the integration of the Internet and the Intranet. Database software must easily process information between both business-to-business and business-to-consumer transactions.
The security system is another primary concern of the database management system of both business-to-business and business-to-consumer electronic commerce. There are several types of security systems available for a successful electronic commerce business to choose. The secure sockets layer (SSL) is the leading security protocol for electronic commerce (Trepper, 2000). SSL is a fairly secure data transmission method which is applied both on the Internet and the Intranet. With SSL, the browser sends its public key to the server in order to send a secret key to the browser securely. A firewall is a security concept that can be implemented in several ways (Trepper, 2000). Firewalls are used to separate a company’s public web server from the Intranet. They are also used to keep the Internet network segments secure. SET is another security system which is provided by VISA and MasterCard, two biggest credit card organizations in the world. This system ensures the security of business on the Internet. These security systems are so important for database management system to keep the concealment of personal and finance information on both the Internet and the Intranet that a successful electronic commerce business should not ignore.
Selecting suitable web server software, database management software, and security software is the key of a successful electronic commerce business. Nowadays, most website constructors only care about the price of software and their own using habits. However, selecting software which has generality, a user friendly environment, and easy maintenance is their focal point.

IV. Conclusion
A successful electronic commerce business must pay much attention to three aspects of a database management system. Also, continually studying in future knowledge about database management system is also important. The overall management, the real-time system, and object-oriented database management system (OODBMS) are three future prospects which play essential roles in a database management system development.
However, the future of information technology is difficult to pin down. Although today’s database management systems are usually narrowed in the field of service industry or manufacturing industry, maybe another kind of industry will appear tomorrow because of the progress of electronic commerce. How to sustain an organizational and functional database management system becomes a successful electronic commerce business’s challenge.

Annotated Bibliography

Slyke, C. V., Bélanger F. (2003). E-business technologies: Supporting the net-enhanced organization. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
This book introduces the technologies which are applied on electronic commerce system. I want to use Chapter 8: Integrating Back-Office Communications to the functions and the techniques of database management system (Section I and II).

Trepper, C. H. (2000). E-commerce strategies. Redmond, Washington: Microsoft Press
This book introduces the management of electronic commerce and Microsoft techniques. I want to use Chapter 5: E-Commerce Building Blocks to the techniques and the future prospects of database management system (Section II and III).

DeFazio, S., Krishnan, R., Srinivasan, J., Zeldin S. (2001). The importance of extensible database system for e-commerce.
This article is about how database extensibility technology make e-commerce system more effective. I use this article in the functions and the future prospects of database management system (Section I and III).

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