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User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to WebSphere Commerce Version 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in a newer section.WebSphere Commerce is a single, unified e-commerce platform that offers the ability to do business directly with consumers (B2C), directly with businesses (B2B), and indirectly through channel partners (indirect business models). WebSphere Commerce is designed to be a customizable, scalable, and high availability solution that is built to leverage open standards. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels.
Deploying
The topics in this section describe how to publish stores to either a test or production environment, and how to deploy customized code.
Deploying customized assets
When you deploy customized assets for WebSphere Commerce, consider the two stages: packaging and deploying.
… EAR assets
The WebSphere Commerce Java EE assets are provided in a Enterprise Application (EAR) file. If you customize or change your WebSphere Commerce EAR assets, you must package and deploy the changed assets. You deploy your EAR assets to WebSphere Application Server, using either a graphical wizard, or scripting tools. Regardless of whether you use the graphical or scripting tools, always back up your Java EE assets before you deploy.

User Guide
The information contained in this section applies to WebSphere Commerce Version 8. The documentation also applies to all subsequent releases and modifications until otherwise indicated in a newer section.WebSphere Commerce is a single, unified e-commerce platform that offers the ability to do business directly with consumers (B2C), directly with businesses (B2B), and indirectly through channel partners (indirect business models). WebSphere Commerce is designed to be a customizable, scalable, and high availability solution that is built to leverage open standards. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels.
- Planning
  Creating a custom implementation of a WebSphere Commerce store requires a significant amount of planning. From gathering client needs, to deploying the live solution, much work is needed to successfully deploy a custom client store. Use the resources in here to help you plan every phase of store creation.
- Installing
  Review the following sections for information about installing the WebSphere Commerce product, associated maintenance, and WebSphere Commerce enhancements.
- Migrating
  Before you migrate to WebSphere Commerce Version 8.0, review this information to help plan and execute your migration.
- Deploying
  The topics in this section describe how to publish stores to either a test or production environment, and how to deploy customized code.
  - WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool
    The WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool is designed to address the error-prone and time-consuming nature of customized asset deployment. Manual customized asset deployment involves accessing and updating numerous systems, including your database, web server, application server, and WebSphere Commerce server. Manual customization can be problematic, especially for a production environment where downtime has a negative impact on the business. For a customization project with many developers, it is a challenge to ensure that each development environment setup is quick, easy, and repeatable to preserve productivity. The WebSphere Commerce Build and Deployment tool provides a starting point for you to automate your build and deployment processes in a standardized, controlled manner.
  - Managed asset deployment
    Managed assets are files that are uploaded by business users to be used for store marketing, or to supplement products. They are added to WebSphere Commerce through the Assets tool or the Marketing tool in Management Center. By default, managed assets are extracted and deployed through the WebSphere Commerce EAR. To maintain performance in a large-scale production environment, site administrators must switch to alternative extraction and deployment methods for managed assets.
  - Deploying customized assets
    When you deploy customized assets for WebSphere Commerce, consider the two stages: packaging and deploying.
    - ...database assets
      If you customize or change your WebSphere Commerce database, you must package and deploy the changed assets. Deploying your database assets can involve various schema changes and access control policies. In addition, if you have many changed assets, use the WebSphere Commerce loading utilities to load those changes.
    - … EAR assets
      The WebSphere Commerce Java EE assets are provided in a Enterprise Application (EAR) file. If you customize or change your WebSphere Commerce EAR assets, you must package and deploy the changed assets. You deploy your EAR assets to WebSphere Application Server, using either a graphical wizard, or scripting tools. Regardless of whether you use the graphical or scripting tools, always back up your Java EE assets before you deploy.
      - Packaging custom Java EE assets
        The packaging format for Java EE applications is clearly defined in the Java EE specification. Java EE applications are delivered as Java EE EAR files, which are JAR files that have special deployment descriptors to tell the application server information about the application.
      - Packaging Management Center files for deployment
        Before deploying your customized Management Center changes, you must first export the project as a WAR file.
      - Adding custom JAR files to the EAR project
        Configure access to third-party JARS from within the WebSphere Commerce EAR by adding custom JARs to the EAR project.
      - Deploying custom Java EE assets
        You deploy your Java EE assets to WebSphere Application Server.
    - ...web server assets
      If you customize or change your WebSphere Commerce Web server, you must package and deploy the changed assets. Packaging your Web server assets involves how the Web server finds assets, where to store the assets, and packaging the assets. You can then deploy the Web server assets using the partial application update procedure within WebSphere Application Server.
  - Minimizing downtime during deployment
    Your WebSphere Commerce site is an integral part of your company's revenue flow, so disruptions and any downtime should be minimized. Moreover, taking down a site for long periods of time or frequently, reflects on the store's credibility and impacts the customer's shopping experience with and potential return visits to the site.
  - How to increase your success with WebSphere Commerce deployment
    Use these tips and best practices to help you successfully deploy WebSphere Commerce.
  - WebSphere Commerce deployment checklist
    The WebSphere Commerce deployment checklist is based on lessons learned from IBM internal groups, external customers and business partners deploying WebSphere Commerce-based solutions. This checklist is intended to provoke discussion; it is not a detailed set of instructions.
  - Publishing a store archive
    Publishing a store archive to a WebSphere Commerce Server allows you to create a running store. You have two options for publishing a store archive: Publishing a store archive using the Publish wizard, Publishing a store archive using the publishstore utility.
- Operating
- Integrating
  Topics in the Integrating category highlight the tasks that are commonly performed for using WebSphere Commerce in combination with other products.
- Administering
- Tutorials
  WebSphere Commerce provides many tutorials to help you customize and understand your WebSphere Commerce instance and stores.
- Samples
- Developing
  The topics in the Developing section describe tasks performed by an application developer.
- Compliance
  The following section describes how you can leverage WebSphere Commerce features and functionality to help your site be compliant with different privacy and security standards.
- Securing
  These topics describe the security features of WebSphere Commerce and how to configure these features.
- Performance
- Troubleshooting

Customized WebSphere Commerce Enterprise Application (EAR) assets

The WebSphere Commerce Java EE assets are provided in a Enterprise Application (EAR) file. If you customize or change your WebSphere Commerce EAR assets, you must package and deploy the changed assets. You deploy your EAR assets to WebSphere Application Server, using either a graphical wizard, or scripting tools. Regardless of whether you use the graphical or scripting tools, always back up your Java EE assets before you deploy.