The SimpleDBDS Object

The SimpleDBDS object enables a Commerce Server site to deploy Personalization & Membership (P&M) while using a standard database to store customer information.

SimpleDBDS is a namespace provider for the Active Directory Service Interfaces (ADSI) standard that supports database storage. P&M uses the Active User Object (AUO) to represent user information. The AUO assumes that user information is saved using Active Directory Services (ADS).

The SimpleDBDS provider maps an ADS to a database table, so that a Commerce Server site can maintain customer information using P&M while retaining the convenience of a standard database.

Once you have configured the AUO to use the SimpleDBDS ADSI provider, your site accesses the customer database using the AUO. The SimpleDBDS object enables a Commerce Server 3.0 site to use an existing customer database without modification.

Commerce Server 2.0 sites use the StandardSManager object to generate shopper IDs, and use a DBStorage object to access customer information in the database. Configured with the SimpleDBDS provider, Commerce 3.0 sites can use the AUO to generate shopper IDs and to access customer information in the database.

Two versions of SimpleDBDS are provided. One version enables reading and writing of the database, the other is read-only.

For both read-only and read/write versions, the SimpleDBDS object maps to a single row in the customer database table (representing a single customer).

The methods of the SimpleDBDS object are not usually used directly by Active Server Pages (ASP) in a Commerce Server site. Instead, the AUO is configured to use SimpleDBDS as an ADSI provider, and the AUO is used to access customer information.

The SimpleDBDS object supports the following methods.