ATG Commerce as a service (SOA platform)

[thakur4u]

Hi Guys,

How effective and efficient ATG Commerce as a service?

Where does ATG stand on SOA platform, if would like to use ATG as
complete service platform?

Does anyone tried to use ATG Commerce as a service platform (Web
services) where various other interfaces (web containers relies on ATG
service for e-commerce operations and transactions)

As per ATG claim: http://www.atg.com/en/products-services/

“Our products and services are available in four distinct solution
models — software licensing, managed service, Software-as-a-Service
(SaaS), and a partner-hosted on demand solution — to deliver a long-
term solution that businesses will not outgrow”



I'm not sure how mature ATG service platform is when it comes to
implements all e-commerce operations as Web services where one can
expects thousands transactions(e-commerce), could be related any of
the following:

1. Catalogs (search, view, navigation),
2. Shopping cart(AddToCart, Shipping, Payment, order create/save/
remove etc.)
3. Pricing
4. Price List
5. Promotion.
6. Targeting content
7. Scenarios Event
8. Profile
9. Personalization
10. Customization
11. Content Management

As per my knowledge ATG has exposed some services classes to

* /atg/repository/RepositoryServices
* /atg/userprofiling/ProfileServices
* /atg/targeting/TargetingServices
* /atg/commerce/catalog/CatalogServices .
* /atg/commerce/order/.
* /atg/commerce/pricing/.

And some helper classes as well.

I have some questions for ATG experts

1. if ATG would implements as a service platform, do we lose any
ATG’s out of the box functionality or feature,
2. Does ATG Applications also provide web services API for other
application?
1. Merchandising
2. Commerce Search
3. Campaign Management
4. Integrated Contact Center
5. Knowledge
6. Self-Service
7. Analytics
8. Multivariate Testing
3. How does ATG web service API will maintain session’s scope
components (Shopping Cart, Pricing Model etc…).
4. Is ATG RESTfull service maintains the state between the multiple
calls back-forth.
5. Is there any ATG best practices for SOA or web services
available?.



Your advices or guidelines are worth a lot,

Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts and ideas



Thanks,

Thakur

[Jim Aucoin]

Thakur, There is a difference between whether the architecture of
ATG's products is SOA, versus ATG's SaaS offering. SaaS means
"software as a service", and basically means using ATG's products in a
rented model (OnDemand, cloud, whatever you want to call it). I.e.,
you don't run the software on-premise.

I can't comment in any detail about the SOA nature of ATG's products,
except to say that they do support web services and can be called by
other applications (or call other applications) via an integration
framework. Someone else can chime in with more details.

Jim

[thakur4u]

Thanks Jim for your reply, I knew that ATG does not encourage SOA or
SOA like environment
because it doesn't all feature in terms of services (web services)
although ATG exposes some web services to do
basic.
Functionality is limited to Application Modules:
DAS.WebServices
DPS.WebServices
DCS.WebServices

but RESTFull API is really interesting feature to start with
if one would want implement ATG in SOA or SOA like environment
then one has to take all pain of development mimic ATG provide Out-of-
Box service and components(droplets, FormHandlers ..etc.)

You may like to see the discussion started by me on ATG community:
https://community.atg.com/message/6010#6010

but unfortunately only expert expressed his view.