Who Should Read this Guide in VS .NET

Printing EAN13 in VS .NET Who Should Read this Guide

As the title indicates, the Developer s Guide is targeted primarily at application designers and developers. However, other readers involved in scoping, designing, and implementing e-commerce applications will find that it contains relevant and useful information. There are many roles in software development, and each person involved in the project requires different types and levels of information (you can learn more about the roles involved in a software development project by reviewing the Microsoft Solutions Framework Team Model). Readers in the following roles will find this document particularly useful. (Examine the descriptions in the following table to determine your role, and then refer to the Document Roadmap section later in this chapter to locate information that is relevant to your particular responsibilities.)

Developers are responsible for the implementation of the components, Web pages, database objects, and other software artifacts that comprise the e-commerce application. Some are specialized developers who take responsibility for a particular aspect of the solution, while others have a more general role in the production of code.

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The Application Architect s role is to design the software solution and oversee the development effort. To do this effectively, an architect must have a clear understanding of the business requirements, as well as technical knowledge of the development tools and techniques required to build the solution. Additionally, Application Architects must understand the development process from conceptual design to physical implementation. Effective e-commerce solutions, more so than most other application types, require a strong relationship between the design of the software application and the architecture of the infrastructure on which it will run. Infrastructure Specialists are responsible for designing the network topology for an e-commerce site including firewalls, server clusters, staging servers, and administrative and monitoring functionality. Any software implementation must be administered to some degree. System Administrators (including network, Web site, and database administrators) are responsible for the day-to-day running of the site. This includes ensuring that appropriate security measures are taken to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive data, implementing a reliable backup procedure, monitoring the site s performance and availability, and other administrative tasks. Business Decision Makers fulfill an overall product management role in an e-commerce project. They are primarily responsible for determining the project scope as well as the technological and personnel investments required to build a solution that meets the business needs.

The Developer s Guide consists of four main sections, each containing topics related to the development of the site. You are encouraged to read the topics that relate most closely to your role in e-commerce development. The sections, together with their relevance to specific roles and responsibilities, are described next.

This section provides basic introductory information, a roadmap to the remainder of the guide, and installation and configuration instructions for the Reference Architecture application and other required software. All users should review this information prior to reading other sections of the Developer s Guide.

Part 2 contains a high-level description of the application, as well as a summary of the design process used to develop the site. It contains a chapter about the design approach and application model and specific chapters on each phase of the design process. G Business Decision Makers should use this section when evaluating the hardware, software, and expertise requirements for an e-commerce project. G Application Architects will find this section useful in understanding the conceptual use cases, logical model, and physical implementation of the ConsolidatedRetail.com site. G Developers can gain an understanding of the skill requirements and the technologies used in the development of the site. G Infrastructure Specialists will find the physical design of the ConsolidatedRetail.com application useful in determining the required network and security design for the solution.