Multiple Sites and One Data Warehouse

For the latest version of Commerce Server 2007 Help, see the Microsoft Web site.

A single Commerce Server Data Warehouse can store data from multiple sites. You can use the Commerce Server Data Transformation Services (DTS) tasks to perform actions for a particular site or for all sites in the Data Warehouse.

Scenarios

Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) supports multiple virtual servers (that is, default Web sites) on a single physical server. Each of these virtual servers produces one log file. You associate the log files together with a Data Warehouse site when you configure the Web server log import DTS task. For more information, see How to Run the Web Server Log Import DTS Task.

The Data Warehouse supports the following multiple site scenarios:

  • Import Web server log files for multiple sites that use different log files.

  • Import Web server log files for multiple sites. Each site has the same server name, but uses a different port.

  • Import Web server log files for multiple sites. Each site has a different host header.

  • Share resources and databases across sites. For a list of Commerce Server resources that can be shared across multiple sites, see How to Share Resources Across Sites.

    For example, if you have two sites, "My Clothes" and "Baby Clothes," they might share the Profiles resource.

  • Share one Data Warehouse for multiple sites that are in different time zones and have their own online resources.

Issues

Note the following issues when you use one Data Warehouse for multiple sites:

  • When you run the Transaction data import DTS task on a Data Warehouse that contains data for multiple Web sites, make sure that classes extended by more than one Web site have uniquely named members if their data types are not the same. If a new member is added to a class in multiple Web sites and the data type of the new members is not the same, a failure may occur or data may be incorrectly converted when the Transaction data import DTS task is run.

  • If one Data Warehouse is supporting multiple sites, the names of the catalogs for which you are importing data must be unique.

    If there are two sites that have the same catalog name and the same products, and the catalog properties and product definitions are different, the data in the catalog that is imported first will be overwritten when data for the second catalog is imported.

  • If the Profiles resource is shared by multiple sites in the Data Warehouse, on certain reports, individual users will appear to belong to each site that shares the Profile resource. Therefore, the grand totals in the reports will be inflated because users will be counted one time for each site that shares the Profiles resource in which they are registered.

    The following reports are affected:

    • Registered Users by Date Registered

    • User Days to Register

    • User Registration Rate

    If the Profiles resource is shared across sites, disable or ignore the grand totals in these reports.

See Also

Other Resources

Extending the Data Warehouse