Electronic Commerce and Database Issues Serge Abiteboul INRIA EDBT Summer School -- April 1999

Electronic Commerce and Database Issues

Serge AbiteboulINRIAEDBT Summer School -- April 1999

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Overview

1. Introduction 2. Business models

Web-catalog, procurement, auctions Portals

3. Enabling technologies Digital currency, cryptography, EDI

4. Active Views5. Conclusions and bibliography

1. INTRODUCTION

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Electronic commerce

Commerce n. buying and selling, all forms of trading, including banking, insurance, etc.

[the Oxford dictionary]

Electronic commerce Commerce using computers and networks

[my definition]

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Introduction: Goals

Increase the speed, efficiency of business transactions

Improve services and customer support

Decrease costs using computers and network technology

In short: increase profit

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Introduction: Web catalog

Software to allow customers to buy some products on the Web

All kinds of goods Must manage everything

customer search for product provide all information about product ordering, billing, payment delivery customer support, etc.

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Main goals of Web catalog

facilitate search for product enable small business to reach out marketing, promotions

personalized for more efficiency promote new brand/product

fast reaction: adapt to market, reduce inventory, get ride of old stuff

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Process for a company of acquiring all products it needs

Based on special deals with specific partners

Based on the rules of the companies (and regulations for the government)

Search, order, approval, delivery, (internal/external) billing, support, etc.

Introduction: procurement

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Reduce processing costs Reduce processing time Reduce errors

EC means connection between the computerized applications of all parties in business transactions all virtual / paperless business transactions

Introduction: procurement

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What kind of data? Catalog: large amount of multimedia

data Distributed data Transaction data, e.g. orders Stock management User profile, temporal data Knowledge: on products and

customers

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Legacy data and interoperability

Inventory and pricing: Relational Databases

Customer data: Specific Application Catalog: textual format

Payment systems: off the shelf boxes allowing a variety of payment modes

Existing ordering system

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Simplified product data

Product-basic all productscategory=electronic, subcategory=sound,name=Gismo223, code=F2GHYYRF,selling-price=1200FF

Product-specific for Gismosvoltage=list(110,220), Gismo-norm=GHTF333

External resourcesdescription=http://m.ec.fr/cat/Gismoreviews=http://reviews.com/Gismo

Private databuying-price=100$, quantity-in-stock=20000, supplier=Camif, authorized-discount=30%

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Same data in XML<product>

<basic> <cat> electronic <subcat >sound </subcat><cat> <n>Gismo223 </n><c>F2GHYYRF</c><sp currency=French-franc>1200</sp> </basic>

<specific><v>110</v><v>220</v> <Gismo-norm>=GHTF333</Gismo-norm> </specific>

<external> … </external><private>

<bp currency=dollar>100</bp> <qis>20000</qis>, <s>Camif</s> <ad>30</ad></private><\product>

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What kind of data processing?

On Line Transaction Processing On Line Analytical Processing Data Warehouse Data Mining

Workflow Management Subscription, publishing, push

technology

2. BUSINESS MODELS

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Business Models

B2C business to customer e.g., Web catalog

B2B business to business e.g., procurement

B2G business to government restrictive due to regulations

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2.1 Some business modelsB2C: Web catalog

Customer

Third party (bank)

Vendor

Search

Billing

payment

OrderDelivery

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More on Web catalogs Product description and search. Branch

out to external resources (news articles), annotations by customers, chat rooms

Interactivity. At least emails. Talks Dynamic updates: adjust prices in real

time, advertisements, promotions, etc. Personalized Logging

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B2C: E-Mall

Customer

Third party (bank)

E-Mall

Search

Billing

VendorVendorVendorVendorVendor

Third party (bank)

Third party (bank)

Third party (bank)

Third party (bank)

payment

Order

Delivery

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B2C: Comparative Shopping

http://www.addall.com

24 bookstores searched in about 10 seconds

between $42 and $78 that’s why people will use them!

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B2B or B2C: Auction

Public sale in which each article is sold to highest bidder

Based on trust: auctioneer and 3rd party Both B2C and B2B Integration in corporate business process B2B predicated large growth Automatic selection of bids: game theory

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Auction

Customer

Third party (bank)

Auctioneer

Search

Bidding

VendorVendorVendorVendor

Register

Notify

Many kinds of auctions: classic, Dutch, candle...

Payment

BillingDelivery

BiddingBiddingBidding

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More Complex Models

Transaction attributes: quantity, packaging, delivery, support, insurance…payment attributes

Coupons, frequent flyers, promotions, cash back offers, 2 for 1, free trials, free samples, cross sales, upsales, contests, subscription, loyalty awards

Many more to be invented

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2.2 Situation

B2B still limited to large companies large potential for growth must adapt to business rules of all partners growth with complex models such as auctions

B2G very big growth under pressure of US, EC, etc US: all bidding use EDI by 1999

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Situation -- B2C

hard to install & need more personalization

about 400% growth per year last 4 years

Virtual: electronic magazines, X, insurance...

Products

computer products 32%travel 24%entertainment

19%gifts & flowers

10%food & drinks 5%

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B2C

Stores big chains like wal-mart (US), camif (France) very dynamic SME’s

Services traditional banks, insurance, etc. new “virtual” ones (banks without physical

counters) Virtual malls

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2.4 Portals

One stop shopping for any information inside or outside the company (shopping mall for knowledge)

Enterprise information portal Web portal (my.netscape.com or

my.yahoo.com)

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Portals

Heterogeneityreports (word,ps,html,..), newsgroup, email, spreadsheets, newspapers, analytic tools, etc.

Data integration

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Portals

Webbrowsers

Webbrowsers

Webbrowsers

Webserver

Publish&subscribe engine

Crawler&filter engineSecurity managerRequest brokerBusiness intelligenceOutput/Delivery

Information repository

Web access

DataWarehouse

OLAP

Imagevideo

reports

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Some Portal Rules [from Wayne Eckerson]

Designed for casual users

Intuitive classification and searching

Collaborative sharing Intelligent routing Integrated tools:

query, report, olap, drill through to data

Server-based (many concurrent users)

API access Security & flexible

permissioning Easy to deploy (thin

client) Easy to customize

and personalize

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Standard issues:Data conversion and integration

Wrapper technology -- data conversion Mediator technology -- data integration Data Warehouse -- consistency

maintenance

Fast data loading Management of replication, update

propagation Query rewriting & query optimization

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Less standard issues

Task sequencing : looking for a biblio ref check first some selected sites if no success, look in others transform the biblio in BibTex format and

add to personal bibliography propose a search for the report in other

resources Change control: Query subscription

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Query subscription: changes

Changes in label graphs : as in DOEM

Catalog

productcode

category

price

Gismos78

electronic

£234description

very nice

£278

sub

99/02/0101/05/03

99/09/09

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Query subscription: changes

Change value of atomic vertex value Creation of new vertex Addition/removal of an edge

Change of the label on an edge: add/remove

Move a vertex: add/remove

annotations on edges and vertexes

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Query subscription: queries

select P.code, P.description

from Catalog.product Pwhere P.price <changed>Q vertex annotation

where P.<added>description edge annotation

where P.price data in annotation<changed <old=Q’, date T>>Qand Q - Q’ > 100 and T > “99/04/03”

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Query subscription: examples On the first of each month, send me the list

of all products in my interest list such that their price increased by more than 10%

Each time there are ten new employees, send me their names and departments

Notify me if the price of this house decreases

similarity on event when condition do action

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Query subscription: management

Detect the event date, changes, combined changes

Evaluate the condition incremental evaluation

Perform the action Combined evaluation for thousands

of customers

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Goals: in all cases

personalization fast deploymentrobustness and correctness

3. ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES

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3.1 EDI -- B2B

EDI= Electronic Data Interchange Standard for business data exchange 2 standards:

ANSI X12 in US EDIFACT in world - UN committee

Collect elements in databasestranslate EDI transmit

90% of fortune 100; 10% others

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<!DOCTYPE Book-Order PUBLIC "-//Editor//DTD Book Order Message//EN">

<Book-Order Supplier="4012345000094" Send-to="http://www.bic.org/order.in">

<title>Editor Lite-EDI Book Ordering</title> <Order-No>967634</Order-No>

<Message-Date>19961002</Message-Date> <Buyer-EAN>5412345000176</Buyer-EAN>

<Order-Line Reference-No="0528837">

<ISBN>0316907235</ISBN>

<Author-Title>Labaln, Brian/Chrome</Author-Title>

<Quantity>2</Quantity>

</Order-Line>

<Order-Line Reference-No="0528838">

<ISBN>0856674427</ISBN>

<Author-Title>Parry, Linda (ed)/William Morris</Author-Title>

<Quantity>1</Quantity>

</Order-Line><input type="checkbox" name="partial" value="allowed"/>

<text>Tick here if a delayed/partial supply of order is acceptable</text>

<input type="checkbox" name="confirmation" value="requested"/>

<text>Tick here if Confirmation of Acceptance of Order is to be returned by e-mail</text>

<input type="checkbox" name="DeliveryNote" value="required"/>

<text>Tick here if e-mail Delivery Note is required to confirm details of delivery</text>

<E-Address>E-mail address: <input name="e-address" size="25"></input></E-Address>

<Language>Please respond in:<select name="response-language">

<option value="EN" selected>English</option><option value="FR">Fran&ccedil;ais</option>

<option value="DE">Deutsch</option> <option value="ES">Espagnol</option>

<option value="IT">Italian</option> </select></language>

<input type="submit" value="Press here to send completed form to supplier">

</Book-Order>

This data in XML/EDI

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EDI

layers business application level (specific to

company ’s software) EDI standard layer -- data exchange communication layer (email, point to

point/telnet, www)

typically moving from email to www

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EDI messages

Data element: purchase order number, quantity, unit price

Data segment: Group of data element that convey information. E.g., invoice term, shipping information

Transaction set: business document. E.g., purchase order (made of segments)

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3.2 Digital Currency

Relies on network for transmission Relies on cryptography for security

in open network environment Relies on connections with standard

financial system

Goal: reduce costs, improve services

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Digital Currency

« smart cards » require accounts credit card billing at end of billing cycle debit card/ payment at end of billing cycle debit card/ deposit $ deduct at each

purchase electronic money

micro/mini payment

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Electronic Money

Digital cash or E-token should be bank certified exchangeable with other forms of payment tamper resistant storable

transactions via 3rd party (e.g., First virtual)

Bearer certificate (like cash) - whoever holds the certificate holds the value

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Micro and Mini Payments

More than 80% of purchases are less than 20$

Micro < 0.15$ Issue is cost: Standard payment such

as credit card cost too much for those

Digicash, Netbill, Millicent, Payword, MicroMint, Agora...

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Smart card

Processor, e.g. Java card Capable of loading/running several

applications -- one card with bank + digicash + frequent fliers + agenda + address book ...

Cryptography Personal data Mobile computing

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3.3 Cryptography

Public Key Encryption 2 keys: public pK and secret sK to send a message M : send e(pK,M) sK is needed to decrypt the message,

i.e., d(sK,e(pK,M)) = M no need to send keys over the network Rivest-Shamir-Adlemam : prime

numbers

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RSA

pK = (N,p), sK = (N,s) all integers M is a number less than N (break message)

e(pK,M) = Mp mod N d(sK,M’) = M’s mod N

d(sK,e(pK,M)) = Mps mod N use 3 large (100 bits) primes: s > x, y

N= xy & ps mod (x-1)(y-1) =1 Mps mod N = M

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RSA

Feasible (not easy) to do arithmetic with big numbers

Feasible (not easy) to obtain 3 large prime numbers

N = xy and N is publicFactorizing N given p is not unfeasible

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Other property of RSA

To obtain signatures

e(pK,d(sK,M)) = M to sign a message M,

we append d(sK,M)verification e(pK, d(sK,M)) = M

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3.4 Verification

Verify the correctness of a business protocol the robustness of a mode of payment in

case of failure fairness of an auction system etc.

Code verification, model checking, etc.

4. ACTIVE VIEWS

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Active Views

System developed at INRIA Core technology for portals Long term goals:

Declarative specification of data intensive applications

Ease of use and fast deployment (Automatic) verification

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ArchitectureArchitecture

O2 O2

XMLrepositoryXMLrepository

Java ClientJava Client

Java RMIJava RMI

Web BrowserWeb Browser

O2 NotificationO2 Notification

JAVAJAVAAVApi

Java applicationJava application

DOM

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Motivations Database Applications:

passive behavior closed systems persistence, concurrency, access control

New needs e-Commerce, cooperative work reactive behavior fast deployment activity control, ...

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Architecture

AVServeur

AVServeur

AVClient

AVClient

DB application

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Illustration of activities in ActiveViews

Notification Change control

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Notification

AVServer

AVClient

AVClient

AVServer orderorder

notifynotify

notifynotify

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Change control

AVServer

AVClient

AVClient

1 Read

2 Read

3 Modification

4 Write

5 Notification

6 Notification

AVServer

7.Read

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Choices

All XML XML repository XML query language XML views

Declarative specification almost no code to write compilation to an executable application active rules

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Important Aspects

Activities and workflow active rules logical traces notifications

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On-going Research

XML storage under non generic form XML query language Update detection and incremental

propagation Rule management

5. CONCLUSION AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Main characteristics

Like all Web stuff, very rapidly growing Very competitive business Too expensive to install for small

businesses Too complicated to modify/react Little/No personalization Not user friendly

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Some technical challengesData

Management of heterogeneous data: conversion, integration

Management of semistructured data (irregularities), XML-query & optimization

Management of changes (detection, propagation, consistency, etc.) and temporal aspects

Management of large number of user views (personalized)

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Some technical challenges:Knowledge

knowledge description by vendors who are not computer scientists product description business rules

specification of applications by non computer scientists

customization/personalization

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Some technical challenges: control

Rule management large number of users

Management of Distribution Scalability

Declarative specification of applications

Program Verification

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Some technical challenges:user interfaces

Very flashy Web interfaces Very powerful tools: XSL, cascading

stylesheets Automatic translation, language

recognition, etc.

Systems still often very hard to use.Interfaces very hard to develop.

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Bibliography Electronic commerce, N. Adam et

al, Prentice Hall, 1999 Frontiers of electronic

commerce, Kalakota and Whinston, Addison Wesley, 1996

Digital money, D.C. Lynch and L. Lundquist, John Wiley, 1996

(RSA) A method for obtaining digital signatures and public key cryptosystems, Rivest et al Communications ACM, 1978

Sabre, D.G. Copeland et al, IEEE Annals of History of Computing, 1995 (airline reservation system)

Some Web catalogs http://www.amazon.com http://www.dell.com http://www.wal-mart.com

http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/Floor/5815 (xml/edi)

http://www.w3.org (web consortium,xml…)

http://www.sewp.nasa.gov (example of procurement)

digital currencies http://www.firstvirtual.com http://www.digicash.com

http://www.computerworld.com/ecommerce (surveys)

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More EC resources

E-Commerce Times: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/

Net Business: http://www.techweb.com/netbiz/ allECommerce: http://www.allEC.com Thomson EC Resources: http://www.ecresources.com/ ZDNet: http://www.zdnet.com/enterprise/e-business/ Association for internet commerce:

http:://www.commercenet.net Data warehouse institute: www.dw-institute.com http://www.addall.com comparative shopping