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application server and data server in the Web architecture. he browser-based clients typically get
connected to the Web server through irewall and proxy servers that provide appropriate security
to the Web server and application servers.
On the business side, the Internet has been a boon to many organizations. he Internet
brought the world market to the doors of organizations and made globalization possible even to
the smallest of businesses or business models. he Internet and the World Wide Web triggered
changing ways of accessing and sharing information. It had a profound efect on the concept and
nature of electronic commerce (e-commerce). E-commerce can be classiied broadly into three
categories: business-to- business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), and consumer-to-consumer
(C2C). he following subsection delves into the efect of the Internet, particularly on the B2B and
B2C e-commerce.
1.1.4.1 B2B E-Commerce
Business-to-business (B2B) can be deined as commercial transactions that take place between one
organization and the other. Electronic data interchange (EDI) was the earliest mechanism that
enabled B2B commerce. EDI enabled the transfer of structured data, by agreed message standards,
from one computer system to another by electronic means. EDI helped in the exchange of busi-
ness documents such as purchase orders, invoices, and so on, in an electronic format. B2B in the
pre-Internet era was implemented by only a very few but large organizations as EDI was expensive,
complex, and error prone. Moreover, EDI needed to be implemented on value added networks
(VAN), and this was prohibitively expensive.
he advent of XML in 1995 provided life support to the EDI-based B2B industries. XML-
based EDI enabled enterprises to exchange information with other organizations using disparate
EDI message format (EDI-XML) without calling for extensive changes to their internal systems.
1.1.4.2 B2C E-Commerce
Business-to-consumer (B2C) essentially denotes the commercial transactions that take place
between a merchant (organization) and the consumer (the end customer). he proliferation of
personal computers and the Internet revolution brought the shops to the desk of individuals. Some
examples of B2C categories are online shopping malls, Internet banking, distance education, and
stock trading. he Internet was therefore a boon to businesses and saw an era of such spawning
electronic businesses coming closer to the consumer.
1.1.5 Problems with Web Architecture
he Internet and Web server combination was, on the one hand, an enormous success; they
presented the businesses with some critical problems, on the other. Partial failure and band-
width were two among the important problems. Initially, the Web was besieged with problems
of partial failure. Failure of one or more systems connected to the Web was a common phe-
nomenon at one point in time. Similarly, bandwidth available for the users was limited and
the applications were not designed to provide performance. It is very important to keep these
two considerations in mind while designing the applications that are deployed on the Web
architecture.
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