Application Server Platforms in e-commerce

The top Database Systems suppliers have issued their e-commerce products/solutions. Refer to the following table, you would see MySQL and its partners have issued the most e-commerce applications. All the while, MySQL is an open source database system as being claimed "The world's most popular open source database" in its official website.

What is AJAX?

I summarise the information about AJAX from (W3Schools n.d.). AJAX stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, which is not a new programming language, but a technique for creating better, faster, and more interactive web applications. With AJAX, your JavaScript can communicate directly with the server, using the JavaScript XMLHttpRequest object. With this object, your JavaScript can trade data with a web server, without reloading the page. AJAX uses asynchronous data transfer (HTTP requests) between the browser and the web server, allowing web pages to request small bits of information from the server instead of whole pages.The AJAX technique makes Internet applications smaller, faster and more user-friendly.

The web standards used in AJAX are well defined, and supported by all major browsers. AJAX applications are browser and platform independent. In other words, the web pages that developed by AJAX can be run across different platforms (e.g. .NET or Java). Now "Web 2.0" gives us a direction of future development of the Internet. I quote the following statement from (Wikipedia 2009).

Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.

Banerjee (2001) believed that Java and .Net will converge one day as a single platform before the concept of "Web 2.0" was introduced in 2004. The Internet is becoming a develpment platform. It is moving a step forward by using AJAX to develop the internet applications. AJAX can enrich the web interfaces so that the interactivities of web applications are highly improved. For example, Flickr adopted the Web 2.0 cencept. Nowadays enterprises are adopting the approach of social network. Instant Message is widely used in some commerical organisation. It also means AJAX will be taking an important role in the enterprise software architecture. The corporate interanet or extranet will be moving to this direction.

The mode-view-controller (MVC) is the paradigm of distributed system. In MVC, the model represents the information (the data access) of the application; the view corresponds to elements of the user interface such as text, checkbox items, and so forth; and the controller manages the communication of data and the business logics used to manipulate the data to and from the model (Wikipedia 2009).

Actionscript and Ruby on Rail both object oriented pragramming language and use MVC paradigm to develop web based applications.

References

Banerjee A 2001, .NET framework comparison with Java Architecture, Mindcracker Network, viewed on 26 April 2009, <http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/abanerjee/DotNetforJava11292005023419AM/DotNetforJava.aspx>.

W3Schools n.d., AJAX Introduction, viewed on 24 April 2009, <http://www.w3schools.com/Ajax/ajax_intro.asp>.

Wikipedia 2009, Web 2.0, Wikipedia, The free encyclopedia, last modified 1 May 2009, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., US, viewed 29 April 2009, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0>.

Wikipedia 2009, Model–view–controller, Wikipedia, The free encyclopedia, last modified 1 May 2009, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., US, viewed 29 April 2009, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-view-controller>.