FAQ

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Licensing for Commerce Server 2009 is structured in same manner as Commerce Server 2007 SP2, meaning it’s a “per processor” license. When licensing Commerce Server 2009, you will receive the new features (Commerce Foundation and SharePoint Commerce Services), in addition to a version of Commerce Server 2007, which Commerce Server 2009 depends on. You receive Commerce Server 2007 SP2 as part of the license because it must be installed first in order to use the Commerce Server 2009 license. 

Customers who currently have Microsoft Software Assurance as part of their Volume Licensing Agreement with Microsoft are entitled to upgrade from Commerce Server 2007 to Commerce Server 2009 at no additional cost.

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Commerce Server 2009 is designed to install on the following platform configurations:

Note:  Commerce Server 2007 is included with your license for Commerce Server 2009.

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Commerce Server 2009 is licensed in the same manner as Commerce Server 2007 SP2, meaning that Commerce Server 2009 is per processor. As per Microsoft guidelines, per-processor licensing ignores how many cores are on a processor. For example, a dual-core processor that has two cores on it is still considered one processor for licensing purposes. More information on Microsoft per-processor licensing is available at: http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/multicore.mspx

Customers who currently have Microsoft Software Assurance as part of their Volume Licensing Agreement with Microsoft are entitled to upgrade from Commerce Server 2007 to Commerce Server 2009 at no additional cost.

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There is no price increase between Commerce Server 2007 and Commerce Server 2009. As of January 2009, the estimated retail prices for Commerce Server 2009 in the United States are:

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There are two versions of Commerce Server 2009:  Commerce Server 2009 Standard and Commerce Server 2009 Enterprise.  The differences between these two versions are:

Commerce Server 2009 Enterprise includes the following features (which are not available in Commerce Server 2009 Standard):

Commerce Server 2009 Enterprise has no restrictions on deployment topology and site set up.

The following table summarizes the two versions:

Commerce Server 2009 Feature (32-bit and 64-bit)	Benefit	Standard	Enterprise
Functionality
New Multi-Channel Commerce Foundation	Unifies the run-time calling model across all Commerce Server systems, introduces new commerce entities, built-in multi-channel awareness and meta data for commerce entities.
SharePoint Commerce Services	30 Web Parts and controls (including source code for extensibility), contemporary skin out-of-the-box Web site, integrated into Microsoft SharePoint®, with optional sample data.
Marketing, Campaigns, Direct Mail	Allows for different marketing campaigns for different brands or different customer segments – or both. Comes with built-in discounts, advertisement management, and a direct mailer, with expression-based lists; all with multi-lingual support.
Sharing of Catalog and Marketing Campaigns Across Web sites	Easily manage multiple sites from multiple catalogs, or a single site with multiple catalogs.
Content Staging	Allows for coordinated transactional content, Web application settings, and business data replication from a “staging” environment to production environment.
Data Warehousing and Analytics Functions	Offers an integrated data warehouse across customer profile, catalog, order, marketing, and Web log data.
Deployment
Can Deploy to Production Environment	Production license.
Side-by-side Deployment with Commerce Server 2007 SP2	Install Commerce Server 2009 into existing Commerce Server 2007 SP2 deployments with no changes; and incrementally take advantage of the new features.
Commerce Server Applications per Commerce site	Specific “applications” within Commerce Server can be created for better performance handling.	1	Unlimited
Maximum Number of Physical Processors per Server (can be hyper-threaded or dual-core)		2	Unlimited (Based on OS Max)
Number of Physical Servers per Web Farm		2	Unlimited
Number of Commerce Server Sites per Server	Specific “sites” within Commerce Server can be created for better performance handling.	10	Unlimited (Bound only by hardware or IIS limits)

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To license Commerce Server 2009 in a virtualized environment (that is, installing Commerce Server on a virtual server), the software licensing requirements vary by version of the product: Standard Edition versus Enterprise Edition (EE).

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No. Commerce Server 2009 does not require SharePoint—neither Windows SharePoint Server nor Microsoft Office SharePoint Services—to function. However, Office SharePoint Server is recommended for the full out-of-box site shopping experience and management functionality.

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SharePoint is the general market name for both Windows SharePoint Services and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.

Windows SharePoint Services is the solution that enables you to create Web sites for information sharing and document collaboration. Windows SharePoint Services—a key piece of the information worker infrastructure delivered in Windows Server 2003—integrates well with client applications, including the Microsoft Office system, providing additional functionality and serving as a platform for application development.

Office SharePoint Server 2007 builds on top of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to provide additional capabilities, including collaboration, portal, search, enterprise content management, business process and forms, and business intelligence.

More information about Microsoft Office SharePoint Server is available at: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/FX100492001033.aspx

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Microsoft Office SharePoint Server offers an array of licenses, which is available for review at: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointserver/FX101865111033.aspx

At minimum, one will require Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. This is included in Windows Server licensing for internal content. If one wishes to host an externally facing site with Windows SharePoint Services, then an external connector license for Windows Server is required.

For Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, there are different licenses for internal usage and external usage (such as Microsoft Office SharePoint Server for Internet Sites). Please see the URL above for more details.

In general, to deploy Office SharePoint Server on a Web farm, you will require at least one external Internet license (“MOSS for Internet Sites”). You will also require an internal license and a certain number of Client Access Licenses (CALs) for those internally managing the content on the site.

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This table summarizes the key differences with respect to Commerce Server 2009 and SharePoint:

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In this case there is minimal integration. Commerce Server 2009 ships with a Default Site, which is a set of Web parts and controls (collectively called SharePoint Commerce Services) styled in a Windows SharePoint Services or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server deployment.  When the Commerce Server 2009 deployment completes, you have the option to run the SharePoint Commerce Services Configuration utility. In this utility, you will be asked to create a new SharePoint site (for example, a URL or a port), which will create a new site within SharePoint central administration. The installation of the Commerce Foundation component, including all of the Commerce Server classic core services, is independent and effectively unaware of the SharePoint installation. Therefore, you will be left with an e-commerce site, configured and ready for skinning. Content management, through Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, is integrated with the site and will be available with the setup of the Default Site.

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Using a different content management system (CMS) means that you will not be able to leverage the full out-of-the-box features and functionality of Commerce Server 2009, specifically around the Default Site and potentially the on-the-site editing capabilities. This is because the Default Site is designed to run within SharePoint (either Windows SharePoint Services or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server). Therefore, if you have an existing CMS and wish to leverage it, there would be two possible courses of action:  1) If you wish to leverage the Default Site, you can use the Web parts outside of SharePoint and in an ASP .NET 3.5 set of pages; or 2) Use the CMS to manage static content only, and use Windows SharePoint Services or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to manage the Default (e-commerce) Site. In case 1, you would need to customize the Web parts to run in an ASP.NET 3.5 environment, outside of SharePoint.  Note that the Web parts are not designed to run outside of SharePoint, but can be customized to do so.  (The source code for the Web parts is shipped with the Default Site.) This does assume that the existing CMS supports publishing to ASP.NET 3.5 pages. In case 2, you are effectively managing the different aspects of the content (static versus dynamic) using different tools. This means that static content would be managed by your existing CMS, and the remaining, dynamic parts of the site (that is, the Default Site) would be managed within SharePoint. In both cases, you gain the benefits of the new functionality built into the Commerce Foundation in Commerce Server 2009. In case 2, you retain the on-the-site editing benefits of SharePoint. The downside in both cases is that a level of custom work is required, and a split where management of content occurs will take place.

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Commerce Server 2009 supports side-by-side installation with Commerce Server 2007, meaning that when Commerce Server 2009 is installed against a Commerce Server 2007 site, all existing features and functionality will continue to work. This allows businesses to take advantage of the new features and functionality of Commerce Server 2009 on an incremental basis. (Note:  Commerce Server 2009 ships with a copy of Commerce Server 2007.)

Businesses on earlier versions of Commerce Server (for example, Commerce Server 2002), will require an upgrade to Commerce Server 2007 first. It is recommended, in this case, for businesses to move directly to Commerce Server 2007 and then install Commerce Server 2009, taking advantage of the newest features, functionality, and ease of use.

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Commerce Server 2009 introduces interoperability with SharePoint that was not present in previous versions of the product. As such, working with all aspects of Commerce Server 2009 will require SharePoint technical skills, both for deploying and development of custom new pages. In addition, if you wish to design your own subsites and pages, designers may want to be familiar with SharePoint Designer and Expression Web.

Developers working with Commerce Server 2009 will find a common unified programming model, which can make working with the different Commerce Server core systems easier. This is because calling the marketing system is programmatically the same as calling the orders system or the profile system (to name a few). This is .NET C# programming, so technical staff already working with Commerce Server 2007 or the general .NET framework will have the requisite knowledge to develop with Commerce Server 2009.