11.2 Sample Application Overview

The sample application is a typical e-commerce application: an online pet store enterprise that sells products--animals--to customers. The application has a Web site through which it presents an interface to customers. Administrators and external businesses such as suppliers use other application interfaces to maintain inventory and perform managerial tasks. Each class of users has access to specific categories of functionality, and each interacts with the application through a specific user interface mechanism.

While the application handles most tasks automatically, some tasks must be done manually, such as managing inventory and shipping orders.

You can consider the entire sample application as the Pet Store enterprise. Figure 11.2 provides a high-level view of the business or real-world problem that the application is intended to solve.

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Figure 11.2 Real-World Business

Conceptually, the business divides into these functional units:

• The Web site presents an online pet store interface to the customer. The customer shops and places orders through this interface. When a customer completes an order, the interface sends the order to the order fulfillment center. Because the Web site functional unit drives further business processing when it sends a purchase order to the fulfillment center, it can be thought of as the front end.
• The fulfillment center fulfills customer orders. It has an order fulfillment component and a supplier component. The fulfillment center processes orders based on the enterprise's business rules, manages financial transactions, and arranges for products to ship to customers. Because not all products are in stock at any given moment, order processing may occur over a period of time. Administrators and other suppliers may interact with the fulfillment center. This portion of the business is referred to as the back end, because its processing is triggered by placing an order, an action that occurs in the Web site portion. Although the supplier component is part of the sample application, it could just as easily be a service external to the application.