Electronic Commerce Technology
Read this chapter to learn about the technologies that support e-business and e-commerce. Although this chapter was written in 2008, think about instances in your own experiences where more recent technologies have made e-commerce/e-business faster, less expensive, more reliable, and more secure. Create a small chart of some important items you purchase frequently. Label the columns "Item", "Purchase Frequency", "How first purchased" (such as at a store, over the phone, online, etc.), "Most recent purchase date", and "Purchase method". Notice the changes. Have you evolved into an e-commerce/e-business user?
Internet technology
Computers can communicate with each other when they speak a common language or use a common communication protocol. Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is the communication network protocol used on the Internet. TCP/IP has two parts. TCP handles the transport of data, and IP performs routing and addressing.
Data transport
The two main methods for transporting data across a network are circuit and packet switching. Circuit switching is commonly used for voice and package switching for data. Parts of the telephone system still operate as a circuitswitched network. Each link of a predetermined bandwidth is dedicated to a predetermined number of users for a period of time.
The Internet is a packet switching network. The TCP part of TCP/IP is responsible for splitting a message from the sending computer into packets, uniquely numbering each packet, transmitting the packets, and putting them together in the correct sequence at the receiving computer. The major advantage of packet switching is that it permits sharing of resources (e.g., a communication link) and makes better use of available bandwidth.
Routing
Routing is the process of determining the path a message will take from the sending to the receiving computer. It is the responsibility of the IP part of TCP/IP for dynamically determining the best route through the network. Because routing is dynamic, packets of the same message may take different paths and not necessarily arrive in the sequence in which they were sent.
Addressability
Messages can be sent from one computer to another only when every server on the Internet is uniquely addressable. The Internet Network Information Center (InterNIC) manages the assignment of unique IP addresses so that TCP/IP networks anywhere in the world can communicate with each other. An IP address is a unique 32-bit number consisting of four groups of decimal numbers in the range 0 to 255 (e.g., 128.192.73.60). IP numbers are difficult to recall. Humans can more easily remember addresses like aussie.mgmt.uga.edu. A Domain Name Server (DNS) converts aussie.mgmt.uga.edu to the IP address 128.192.73.60. The exponential growth of the Internet will eventually result in a shortage of IP addresses, and the development of next-generation IP (IPng) is underway.