How does it work? Internet standards

We have introduced the general terms and concepts that describe the operation of the Internet and the World Wide Web. In this section we look briefly at the standards that you may encounter which have been adopted to enable information transfer. Knowledge of these terms is useful for anyone involved in the management of e-commerce since discussion with suppliers may involve them. The standards forming the technical infrastructure of the Internet are controlled by several bodies which are reviewed at the end of this chapter.

1. Networking standards

Internet standards are important in that they are at the heart of definitions of the Internet. According to Leiner et al. (2000), on 24 October 1995 the Federal Networking Council unanimously passed a resolution defining the term ‘Internet’.

‘Internet’ refers to the global information system that – (i) is logically linked together by a globally unique address space based on the Internet Protocol (IP) or its subsequent exten- sions/follow-ons; (ii) is able to support communications using the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) suite or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons, and/or other IP-compatible protocols; and (iii) provides, uses or makes accessible, either publicly or privately, high level services layered on the communications and related infrastructure described herein.

2. TCP/IP

TCP/IP development was led by Robert Kahn and Vince Cerf in the late 1960s and early 1970s and, according to Leiner et al. (2000), four rules controlled Kahn’s early work on this protocol. These four rules highlight the operation of the TCP/IP protocol:

Distinct networks would be able to communicate seamlessly with other networks.
Communications would be on a best-effort basis, that is, if a data packet did not reach the final destination, it would be retransmitted from the source until successful receipt.
Black boxes would be used to connect the networks; these are now known as ‘gateways’ and ‘routers’ and are produced by companies such as Cisco and 3Com. In order to keep them simple there would be no information retained by the ‘gateways’.
There would be no global control of transmissions – these would be governed by the requester and sender of information.

It can be seen that simplicity, speed and independence from control were at the heart of the development of the TCP/IP standards.

The data transmissions standards of the Internet such as TCP/IP are part of a larger set of standards known as the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. This defines a layered model that enables servers to communicate with other servers and clients. When implemented in software, the combined layers are referred to as a ‘protocol stack’. The seven layers of the OSI model are:

Application. The program such as a web browser that creates and receives messages.
Presentation. These protocols are usually part of the operating system.
Session. This includes data-transfer protocols such as SMTP, HTTP and FTP.
Transport. This layer ensures the integrity of data transmitted. Examples include the Internet TCP and Novell SPX.
Network. Defines protocols for opening and maintaining links between servers. The best known are the Internet protocol IP and Novell IPX.
Data link. Defines the rules for sending and receiving information.
Physical. Low-level description of physical transmission methods.

The postal service is a good analogy for the transmission of data around the Internet using the TCP/IP protocol. Before we send mail, we always need to add a destination address. Likewise, the IP acts as an addressed envelope that is used to address a message to the appropriate IP address of the receiver (Figure 3.13).

The Internet is a packet-switched network that uses TCP/IP as its protocol. This means that, as messages or packets of data are sent, there is no part of the network that is dedicated to them. This is like the fact that when your letters and parcels are sent by post they are mixed with letters and parcels from other people. The alternative type of network is the circuit- switched network such as phone systems where the line is dedicated to the user for the duration of the call. Taking the analogy further, the transmission media of the Internet such as telephone lines, satellite links and optical cables are the equivalent of the vans, trains and planes that are used to carry post. Transmission media for the Internet include analogue media such as phone lines and faster, digital media such as Integrated Service Digital Network technology (ISDN) and more recently the Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL).

In addition to the transmission media, components of the network are also required to direct or route the packets or messages via the most efficient route. On the Internet these are referred to as ‘routers’ or ‘hubs’, and are manufactured by companies such as Cisco and 3Com. The routers are the equivalent of postal sorting offices which decide the best route for mail to take. They do not plan the entire route of the message, but rather they direct it to the next router that seems most appropriate given the destination and current network traffic.

Some addressing information goes at the beginning of your message; this information gives the network enough information to deliver the packet of data. The IP address of a receiving server is usually in the form 207.68.156.58 (as shown in Figure 3.8) which is a numerical representation of a better-known form such as www.microsoft.com. Each IP address is unique to a given organization, server or client, in a similar way to postal codes referring to a small number of houses. The first number refers to the top-level domain in the network, in this case .com. The remaining numbers are used to refer to a particular organization.

Once the Internet message is addressed, the postal analogy is not so apt since related information is not sent across the Internet in one large message. For reasons of efficiency, information sent across IP networks is broken up into separate parts called packets. The information within a packet is usually between 1 and 1,500 characters long. This helps to route information most efficiently and fairly with different packets sent by different people gaining equal priority. The transmission control protocol TCP performs the task of splitting up the original message into packets on dispatch and reassembling it on receipt. Combining TCP and IP, you can think of an addressed IP envelope containing a TCP envelope which in turn contains part of the original message that has been split into a packet (Figure 3.13).

2. The HTTP protocol

HTTP, the Hypertext Transfer Protocol is the standard used to allow web browsers and servers to transfer requests for delivery of web pages and their embedded graphics. When you click on a link while viewing a web site, your web browser will request information from the server computer hosting the web site using HTTP. Since this protocol is important for delivering the web pages, the letters http:// are used to prefix all web addresses. HTTP messages are divided into HTTP ‘get’ messages for requesting and web page and HTTP ‘send’ message as shown in Figure 3.13. The web pages and graphics transferred in this way are transferred as packets, which is why web pages do not usually download gradually but come in jumps as different groups of packets arrive.

The inventor of HTTP, Tim Berners-Lee, describes its purpose as follows (Berners-Lee, 1999):

HTTP rules define things like which computer speaks first, and how they speak in turn. When two computers agree they can talk, they have to find a common way to represent their data so they can share it.

3. Uniform resource locators (URLs)

Web addresses refer to particular pages on a web server which is hosted by a company or organization. The technical name for web address is uniform (or universal) resource locator (URL). URLs can be thought of as a standard method of addressing, similar to postcodes or ZIP codes, that make it straightforward to find the name of a site.

Web addresses always start with ‘http://’, so references to web sites in this book and in most promotional material from companies omit this part of the URL. Indeed, when using modern versions of web browsers, it is not necessary to type this in as part of the web page location since it is added automatically by the web browser. Although the vast majority of sites start with ‘www’, this is not universal, so it is necessary to specify this.

Web addresses are structured in a standard way as follows:

http://www.domain-name.extensionffilename.html

4. Domain names

The domain name refers to the name of the web server and is usually selected to be the same as the name of the company, and the extension will indicate its type. The extension is also commonly known as the generic top-level domain (gTLD). Note that gTLDs are currently under discussion and there are proposals for adding new types such as .store and .firm. Common gTLDs are:

.com represents an international or American company such as travelocity.com.
.org are not-for-profit organizations (e.g. greenpeace.org)
.mobi – introduced in 2006 for sites configured for mobile phones
.net is a network provider such as demon.net.

There are also specific country-code top-level domains (ccTLDs):

.co.uk represents a company based in the UK such as thomascook.co.uk.
.au, .ca, .de, .es, fi, .fr, .it, nl, etc. represents other countries (the co.uk syntax is an anomaly!).
.ac.uk is a UK-based university or other higher education institution (e.g. cranfield.ac.uk).
.org.uk is for an organization focusing on a single country (e.g. mencap.org.uk).

The ‘filename.html’ part of the web address refers to an individual web page, for example ‘products.html’ for a web page summarizing a company’s products.

When a web address is typed in without a filename, for example www.bt.com, the browser automatically assumes the user is looking for the home page, which by convention is referred to as index.html. When creating sites, it is therefore vital to name the home page index.html (or an equivalent such as index.asp or index.php).

The file index.html can also be placed in sub-directories to ease access to information. For example, to access a support page a customer would type www.bt.com/support rather than www.bt.com/support/index.htm.

It is important that companies define a URL strategy which will help customers or partners find relevant parts of the site containing references to specific products or campaigns when printed in offline communications such as adverts or brochures.

There is further terminology associated with a URL which will often be required when discussing site implementation or digital marketing campaigns, as shown in the box ‘What’s in a URL?’.

Domain name registration

Most companies are likely to own several domains, perhaps for different product lines or countries or for specific marketing campaigns. Domain name disputes can arise when an individual or company has registered a domain name which another company claims they have the right to. This is sometimes referred to as ‘cybersquatting’.

One of the best-known cases was brought in 1998 by Marks and Spencer and other high- street retailers, since another company, ‘One In a Million Limited’, had registered names such as marks&spencer.com, britishtelecom.net and sainsbury.com. It then tried to sell these names for a profit. The companies already had sites with more familiar addresses such as marksandspencers.co.uk, but had not taken the precaution of registering all related domains with different forms of spelling and different top-level domains such as .net. Unsurprisingly, an injunction was issued against One in a Million which as a result was no longer able to use these names. The problem of companies’ names being misappropriated was common during the 1990s, but companies still need to be sure to register all related domain names for each brand since new top-level domain names are created through time such as .biz and .eu.

Managers or agencies responsible for web sites need to check that domain names are automatically renewed by the hosting company (as most are today). For example, the .co.uk domain must be renewed every two years. Companies that don’t manage this process potentially risk losing their domain name since another company could potentially register it if the domain name lapsed. A further option with domain registration is to purchase generic domain names of established sites which may perform well in the search engines.

The mini case study shows one example of the value of domains and the need to protect them which we examine in more detail in Chapter 4.

5. Web presentation and data exchange standards

The information, graphics and interactive elements that make up the web pages of a site are collectively referred to as content. Different standards exist for text, graphics and multimedia. The saying ‘content is king’ is often applied to the World Wide Web, since the content will determine the experience of the customer and whether he or she will return to a web site in future.

5.1. HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) – display of unstructured text content

Web-page text has many of the formatting options available in a word processor. These include applying fonts, emphasis (bold, italic, underline) and placing information in tables. Formatting is possible since the web browser applies these formats according to instructions that are contained in the file that makes up the web page. This is usually written in HTML or Hypertext Markup Language. HTML is an international standard established by the World Wide Web Consortium (and published at www.w3.org) intended to ensure that any web page authored according to the definitions in the standard will appear the same in any web browser.

Content management systems (CMS, Chapter 12) are used to shield business content editors from the complexity of HTML.

A brief example of HTML is given for a simplified home page for an example B2B company in Figure 3.14. The HTML code used to construct pages has codes or instruction tags such as <TITLE>. to indicate to the browser what is displayed. The <TITLE>. tag indicates what appears at the top of the web browser window. Each starting tag has a corresponding end tag usually marked by a ‘/’, for example, <B>plastics</B> to embolden ‘plastics’.

The simplicity of HTML compared to traditional programming languages makes it possible for simple web pages to be developed by non-specialists such as marketing assistants, particularly if templates for more complex parts of the page are provided. Interactive forms and brochures and online sales are more complex and usually require some programming expertise, although tools are available to simplify these. See detailed information on creating HTML pages (Chapter 12).

5.2. XML (extensible Markup Language) – display and exchange of structured text and data

While HTML has proved powerful in providing a standard method of displaying information that was easy to learn, it is largely presentational. HTML only had a limited capability for describing the data on web pages. A capability for summarizing the content of pages is an example of meta-data. ‘Meta’ is part of the ancient Greek language, and in an information management context can be summarized as providing a description or definition about a topic or item.

HTML also has a limited capability for describing documents through HTML meta-tags. These are presented at the start of the document in the header area. As the example below shows they can be used to specify a document’s author, last update and type of content. This uses only some examples of meta-tags; the full definition and an introduction to HTML are available from the World Wide Web Consortium at www.w3.org/MarkUp.

<HEAD>

<TITLE>An intranet document example</TITLE> <META name=”author” content=”Dave Chaffey”>

One application of meta-tags and an illustration of meta-data is that they are used by search engines to identify the content of documents. Early search engines such as AltaVista ranked documents higher in their listings which had meta-keywords that corresponded to the words typed into the search engine by its user. This led to abuse by companies that might include the name of their competitor or repeat keywords several times in the meta-tags, a process known as ‘search engine spamming’. As a result, most search engines now attach limited importance to the keyword meta-tags – in fact Google does not use them at all for ranking purposes, but may use them to identify unique documents. However, most search engines including Google do attach relevance to the <TITLE> tag, so it is important that this does not just contain a company name. For example, easyJet.com used the following title tag which incorporates the main phrases potential visitors may type into a search engine.

<title>easyJet.com – easyjet low cost airline, easy jet, flight, air fares, cheap flights</title>

The limited capability within HTML for meta-data and data exchange has been acknowledged and, in an effort coordinated by the World Wide Web Consortium, the first XML or extensible Markup Language was produced in February 1998. This is not strictly a replacement for HTML since HTML and XML can coexist – they are both markup languages. To help developers use HTML and XML together a new standard, confusingly known as XHTML, was adopted. XHTML and XML are based on Standardized General Markup Language (SGML). The key word describing XML is ‘extensible’. This means that new markup tags can be created that facilitate the searching and exchange of information. For example, product information on a web page could use the XML tags <NAME>, <DESCRIPTION>, <COLOUR> and <PRICE>. Example of tags relevant to a product catalogue are shown below.

Example XML for online marketplace catalogue

This example is a standard for publishing catalogue data. It can be seen that specific tags are used to identify:

Product ID
Manufacturer
Long and short description
Attributes of product and associated picture.

There is no pricing information in this example.

</Product>

<Product Type5″Good” SchemaCategoryRef5″C43171801″> <ProductID>140141-002</ProductID> <UOM><UOMCoded>EA</UOMCoded></UOM> <Manufacturer>Compaq</Manufacturer>

</CountryOfOrigin>

<ShortDescription xml :lang5″en”>Armada M700 PIII 500 12GB</ShortDescription>

This light, thin powerhouse delivers no-compromise performance in a sub-five pound form factor. Size and Weight.(HxWxD) : 12.4 X 9.8 X 1.1 in 4.3 – 4.9 lbs (depending on configuration) Processor: 500-MHZ Intel Pentium III Processor with 256K integrated cache Memory: 128MB of RAM, expandable to 576MB Hard Drive: 12.0GB Removable SMART Hard Drive Display Graphics: 14.1-inch color TFT with 1024 x 768 resolution (up to 16M colors internal) Communication: Mini-PCI V.90 Modem/Nic Combo Operating System: Dual Installation of Microsoft Windows 95 & Microsoft Windows 98 </LongDescript ion>

<AttachmentPurpose>PicName</AttachmentPurpose>

</ProductAttachment>

<AttributeID> Processor Speed</AttributeID> <AttributeValue>500MHZ</AttributeValue>

</ObjectAttribute>

<AttributeID>Battery Life</AttributeID>

<AttributeValue>6 hours</AttributeValue>

</ObjectAttribute>

</Product>

An XML implementation typically consists of three parts: the XML document, a document type definition (DTD) and a stylesheet (XSL), which are usually stored as separate files. We need a simple example to understand how these relate. Let’s take the example of a bookstore cataloguing different books. You will see from this example that it is equivalent to using a database such as Microsoft Access to define database fields about the books and then storing and displaying their details.

The XML document contains the data items, in this case the books, and it references the DTD and XSL files:

Data Items: The Xml Document <books.xml>

<?xml version=”1.0″?>

<!DOCTYPE Bookstore SYSTEM “books.dtd”>

<?xml-stylesheet type=”text/html” href=”books.xsl”?>

<Author>Dave Chaffey</Author>

<Title>E-business and E-commerce Management</Title> <Date>30 November 2003</Date>

<Publisher>Pearson Education</Publisher>

</Book>

<Author>Dave Chaffey</Author>

<Title>Total E-mail Marketing</Title>

<Date>20 February 2003</Date>

<Publ isher>Butterworth Heinemann</Publisher>

</Book>

</Bookstore>

Note: The tags such as Bookstore, Book and author are defined for this particular application. They are defined in a separate Data Type Definition document which is shown below.

The DTD referenced at the start of the XML document defines the data items associated with the root element, which in this case is the bookstore:

Data Definition: Document Type Definition <books.dtd>

<!ELEMENT BookStore (Book)*>

<!ELEMENT Book (Title, Author+, Date, ISBN, Publisher)>

<!ATTLIST Book ID #REQUIRED>

<!ELEMENT Title (#PCDATA)>

<!ELEMENT Author (#PCDATA)>

<!ELEMENT Date (#PCDATA)>

<!ELEMENT ISBN (#PCDATA)>

<!ELEMENT Publisher (#PCDATA)>

Notes:

The Bookstore can contain many books *

Bookstore is known as the ‘Root element’.

+ Allows for one or more author.

PCDATA stands for parsed character data, i.e. a text string; further validation of fields could be used

REQUIRED shows that this field is essential.

The XSL document uses HTML tags to instruct the browser how the data within the XML file should be displayed. Separation of data from their presentation method makes this a more powerful approach than combining the two since different presentation schemes such as with and without graphics can readily be switched between according to user preference.

Presentation: Document Style Sheet File <books.xsl>

<?xml version=”1.0″?>

<th>Title</th>

<th>Author</th>

<th>Publisher</th>

</tr> <xsl:for-each select=”Bookstnre/Book”> <tr><td><xsl:value-of select=’Title”/></td> <td><xsl:value-of select=”Author”/></td> <td><xsl:value-of select=”Publisher”/></td> <td><xsl:value-of select=”Date”/></td> <td><xsl:value-of select=”ISBN”/></td>

</tr> </xsl :for-each>

</table>

</body> </html>

</xsl:template>

</xsl:stylesheet>

Note: The style sheet uses standard HTML tags to display the data

This stylesheet would display the data as follows:

6. Examples of XML applications

One widely adopted XML application is the Dublin Core meta-data initiative (DCMI) (www.dublincore.org), so called since the steering group first met in Dublin, Ohio in 1995, has been active in defining different forms of meta-data to support information access across the Internet. An important part of this initiative is in defining a standard method of referencing web documents and other media resources. If widely adopted this would make it much more efficient to search for a document produced by a particular author in a particular language in a particular date range. Up to now, it has mainly been applied within content management systems to assist in knowledge management for data on intranets and extranets rather than on the public Internet.

The significance of XML is indicated by its use for facilitating supply chain management. For example, Microsoft’s BizTalk server (www.microsoft.com/biztalk) for B2B application integration is based on XML. Since this is a proprietary standard, an open standard ‘Roset- taNet’ (www.rosettanet.org) has been created by a consortium of many of the world’s leading information technology, electronic components and semiconductor manufacturing companies such as Intel, Sony and Nokia. BizTalk server enables different enterprise applications such as SAP and JDEdwards to exchange information as part of improved supply chain management. Microsoft summarize the benefits of BizTalk as:

Reduced ‘time to value’, i.e. development time and cost of application integration
Easy integration with virtually any application or technology
Scalability to any size of application
Support for industry standards such as EDI, XML and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP)
Reliable document delivery including ‘once-only’ delivery of documents, comprehensive document tracking, and logging and support for failover (automatic recovery of documents from a backup system)
Secure document exchange – this is not an integral feature of XML but has been built into this application
Automation for complex business processes
Management and monitoring of business processes
Automated trading partner management
Reduced complexity in development.

Another widely adopted application of XML is ebXML (www.ebxml.org). This standard has been coordinated by Oasis (www.oasis-open.org) which is an international not-for-profit consortium for promoting Internet standards. The original project was intended to define business exchange using five standards:

business processes (support for different activities and transactions involved in buying and selling online)
core data components
collaboration protocol agreements
messaging
registries and repositories.

Oasis defines three types of transactions that form business processes:

Business Transaction. A single business transaction between two partners, such as placing an order or shipping an order.
Binary Collaboration. A sequence of these business transactions, performed between two partners, each performing one role.
MultiParty Collaboration. A series of binary collaborations composed of a collection of business partners.

One application developed using ebXML is to enable different accounting packages to communicate with online order processing systems. This new standard has been recognized by 85% of the accounting industry, the World Wide Web Consortium and the United Nations. In addition, over 120 national and international accounting software vendors have confirmed that they are developing interfaces. Exchequer Software Ltd (www.exchequer.com) is the first company to embed this new technology in its products, which means it receives orders via e-mail directly into its own accounting system. This has resulted in a reduction of 30% in processing costs and a sales increase of 40%. The e-business module of the accounting software can be used to provide a remotely hosted e-commerce shopping cart system with regular updates of stock details, pricing matrices, account information and transactional data, such as outstanding orders and invoices.

Governments are also using XML to standardize data transfer between departments. Examples of the UK government’s draft schema, for example for transfer of patient records, are at www.govtalk.gov.uk.

6.1. Semantic web standards

The semantic web is a concept promoted by Tim Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3.org) to improve upon the capabilities of the current World Wide Web. Semantics is the study of the meaning of words and linguistic expressions. For example, the word ‘father’ has the semantic elements male, human and parent and ‘girl’ has the elements female, human and young. The semantic web is about how to define meaning for the content of the web to make it easier to locate relevant information and services rapidly. As mentioned above, finding information on a particular topic through searching the web is inexact since there isn’t a standard way of describing the content of web pages. The semantic web describes the use of meta-data through standards such as the XML, RDF and the Dublin Core to help users find web resources more readily. Another benefit of the semantic web is that it will enable data exchange between software agents running on different server or client computers.

Agents are software programs created to assist humans in performing tasks. In this context they automatically gather information from the Internet or exchange data with other agents based on parameters supplied by the user.

The applications of the semantic web are best illustrated through examples. Berners-Lee et al. (2001) give the example of a patient seeking medical treatment for a particular condition. They envisage a patient having a personal software agent (effectively a search engine) which is used to find the best source of treatment. The patient’s agent will interact with the doctor’s agent which will describe the symptoms and search pages from different health-care providers which detail their services. The patient’s agent will then give them the different treatment options in terms of cost, effectiveness, waiting time and location. Similarly, a personal agent could be used to find the best flight or a business agent could be used to participate in a reverse auction.

Although the concept of the semantic web has been established for over 10 years, there have been relatively few commercial applications, suggesting the difficulty of implementation together with the lack of demand since the search engines perform well in returning relevant information. The World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3c.org) has compiled some examples which it updates at www.w3.org/2001/sw/sweo/public/UseCases/. The mini case study shows how the concept of the semantic web had been applied at EDF to help knowledge management within their intranet.

6.2. Graphical images (GIF, JPEG and PNG files)

Graphics produced by graphic designers or captured using digital cameras can be readily incorporated into web pages as images. GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) and JPEG (Joint Photographics Experts Group) refer to the two standard file formats most commonly used to present images on web pages. GIF files are limited to 256 colours and are best used for small simple graphics such as banner adverts, while JPEG is best used for larger images where image quality is important, such as photographs. Both formats use image compression technology to minimize the size of downloaded files.

The Portable Network Graphics (PNG) file format is growing in popularity since it is a patent and licence-free standard file format approved by the World Wide Web Consortium to replace the GIF file format.

Animated graphical information (GIFs and plug-ins)

GIF files can also be used for interactive banner adverts. Plug-ins are additional programs, sometimes referred to as ‘helper applications’, that work in association with the web browser to provide features not present in the basic web browser. The best-known plug-ins are probably the one for Adobe Acrobat that is used to display documents in .pdf format (www.adobe.com) and the Macromedia Flash and Shockwave products for producing interactive graphics (www.macromedia.com). Silverlight (www.silverlight.net) is a similar service introduced by Microsoft in 2007 for delivery of applications and streamed media.

7. Audio and video standards

Traditionally sound and video, or ‘rich media’, have been stored as the Microsoft standards .wav and .avi. A newer sound format for music is mp3. These formats are used on some web sites, but they are not appropriate for sites such as the BBC (www.bbc.co.uk), since the user would have to wait until the whole clip downloads before hearing or viewing it. Streaming media are now used for many multimedia sites since they enable video or audio to start playing within a few seconds – it is not necessary for the whole file to be downloaded before it can be played. Formats for streaming media have been established by Real Networks (www.realnetworks.com). Rich media such as Flash applications, audio or video content can also be stored on a web server, or a specialist streaming media server.

Source: Dave Chaffey (2010), E-Business and E-Commerce Management: Strategy, Implementation and Practice, Prentice Hall (4th Edition).

2 thoughts on “How does it work? Internet standards”

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23/08/2022 at 14:50
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23/09/2022 at 19:38