Five New Optimizely Certifications are Here! Validate your expertise and advance your career with our latest certification exams. Click here to find out more

AI OnAI Off
Navigation [hide] [expand]
ARCHIVED This content is retired and no longer maintained. See the latest version here.

Introduction

This document describes the architecture of EPiServer Commerce, with an introduction to the system foundation and related components and products.

Platform architecture

The EPiServer platform consists of the EPiServer framework with a core user interface, CMS and Commerce for content management and e-commerce, and other modules supporting marketing automation and social interaction features. A broad selection of ready-to-use add-ons is available from the EPiServer Add-on Store to extend the functionality of a solution.

EPiServer Commerce

EPiServer Commerce consists of an "e-commerce engine" with a number of subsystems, together with EPiServer CMS for creation and display of product content on the front-end website.

The e-commerce part of EPiServer Commerce is built upon these components and frameworks:

  • Microsoft .NET Framework and ASP.NET
  • Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation (Order and Marketing system)
  • Microsoft Windows Communication Foundation (Catalog System)
  • Business Foundation (legacy Assets and Customer Management)
  • Meta Data Plus (Order and Catalog Systems)
  • Security and Permissions

Refer to the EPiServer system requirements for information about currently supported versions.

The subsystems in EPiServer Commerce use these frameworks and are designed to be completely independent from one another. The core APIs do not rely on other system APIs.

These are the subsystems of EPiServer Commerce:

  • Catalogs - where you define catalog schemas, import existing catalogs, and define price lists.
  • Orders - where you define order schemas, connect payment and shipment gateways, customize order workflows, and manage taxes.
  • Customers - where you create organization structures, set roles and permissions, and extend customer or organization objects.
  • Assets - legacy asset system, from version 7.5 the EPiServer platform asset system is used.
  • Marketing - where you create custom promotions, extend the expression engine, and define policies used for promotions.
  • Markets for definition of markets for multi-market features

Each one of these systems can be disabled or replaced by a 3rd party application.

See also

Last updated: Oct 21, 2014