Ecommerce system today is under constant evolution and the categories of application continue with their expansion. Ecommerce now means consumer based ecommerce with web based stores and auctions forming the core of its business. Ecommerce is also a part of digital products, web content, transaction payments and catalogues presentation and download. Traditional use of ecommerce continues to dominate through B2B commerce, focused advertising and business networks.

Evolution of ecommerce is witnessing the communication channels, social networking sites and Blogs mergers with ecommerce techniques. As technology moves closer to each other as in the case of telecommunications and computing, the growth of industrial sectors will continue and move closer to ecommerce utilization.

Every industrial activity and transaction is linked to computing and ecommerce has become an integral part of the automation strategy. Ecommerce has moved from dedicated system to heterogeneous environments running on multiple devices.

Given the ecommerce growth expectation, the focus returns to security. Success of ecommerce depends on formulating a system wide security network. It needs active involvement of stakeholders, introduction of ciphers, and management of user credentials from protecting user privacy. Introduction of multiple devices have formed a gap in the security and protection factors. A methodology to introduce uniformity in device protection through identification of weak links must be explored. Regulations and usability factors must be extensively studied to ensure a smooth growth and worry free ecommerce transaction environment.

Enterprise level ecommerce sites need a lot more consideration to security, fault tolerance, scalability and content. These factors drive the success of ecommerce site to ensure trouble free smooth online experience to the users.

Security can be divided into two levels of security – Physical security and access control. Security is imposed as packet filter, application gateway and proxy servers. Packet filters is a filtering mechanism to isolate information packets based on user definitions. File transfer protocol (FTP) and Telnet are applications to provide access to the servers. Application gateways form a layer of security for these applications. Proxy servers keep the actual network address hidden from the two way messages by attaching a proxy internet address. It is an important factor to avoid hacking and intrusion.

Web hosting of enterprise ecommerce should ensure that the website is always accessible online. It should also assure transmission and receipt of information without clogging the bandwidth. Physical site should be provided with security to ensure data protection and privacy.

Hosting can be done in many ways. The website can be hosted on an open domain for users to create their websites. It is free hosting where web site is hosted on a shared server and supported by advertising revenues generated by the website by placement of relevant ads by the hosting company.

Shared hosting is similar to free hosting with technical support and email accounts bundled as a package. Website can be hosted on dedicated server with user options of server configuration, security option etc. Server is rented and this hosting pattern is known as dedicated hosting. If the server is owned, a dedicated hosting option is termed as collocated hosting. Hosting of ecommerce sites must be chosen based on need and business nature. Simple ecommerce site with basic presence can opt for shared hosting. If the website has expertise and has high visitor count, a dedicated hosting will suffice the need. An ecommerce pioneer with unique operation and focused marketing should choose collocated hosting.