Learning Site Server From the Ground Up

Delve into this book’s pages, and discover the ins and outs of Site Server Commerce Edition.

• By Robert Leithiser
• 10/01/2001

Offering one of the few books currently available on Microsoft’s Site Server Commerce Edition, Marco Tabini authored this book to allow application developers and site architects to build and implement solutions using the SSCE platform. As such, this volume isn’t intended directly for Exam 70-057: Designing and Implementing Commerce Solutions with Microsoft Site Server 3.0. Tabini’s book is actually like two books in one. The first section covers installing, using, and managing SSCE out of the box. Virtually no code is examined and the focus is on the utilization of the product’s wizards and management tools. This section closes with a discussion of security issues, and a brief examination of the SSCE database structure in Chapter 8 serves as a transition to the remaining material.

The second half addresses customizing and extending SSCE and delves into how to interface with SSCE at the programming level. This is replete with VBScript, Visual Basic, and Visual C++ coding examples.

If your goal is to generate a simple e-commerce site, you can just read Chapters 1 through 7 and skim the rest. If you’re already familiar with SSCE wizards and management, you may want to browse the first part and jump to Chapter 8. But if you’re starting with little prior knowledge and want to learn both the administration and programming sides, you should work through the entire book.

As you work with this volume, I recommend you have access to SSCE itself. In addition, you’ll need a Visual Studio development environment to view the examples. The teaching approach is focused on working through actual examples and code snippets; therefore, you need to work through them while connected to an SSCE server with Visual Basic and Visual Interdev available.

Site Server is a rapidly evolving product. So, in the book you’ll find several outdated references to installation issues and product bugs (the book was written prior to the release of SSCE Service Pack 3). Plus, the installation, examples and interfaces are discussed from an NT perspective even though SSCE is now supported for Win2K. Regardless, the product retains the same functionality and interfaces under Win2K, so don’t let your environment deter you from the book.

I recommend this book to those endeavoring to leverage SSCE. In addition, it has value as an exam-preparation aid as it covers database structure, site foundation and builder wizards, Advertising Server, and Microsoft Wallet.