AES - Amazon Enterprise Solutions

Dipan.Mistry — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 15:41:00 GMT

Well after 5 months working with Amazon, with surprisingly very good weather and having enough coffee that there is now a steady stream of caffeine running through my veins, my time had come to an end in Seattle. Working in a technology city had been a great experience, and you can tell it’s a technology city when you walk into the lobby of the downtown Sheraton Hotel and see in the lounge area a number of Microsoft Surface machines, playing the role of coffee tables, for you to play around with. No queues, no hoards of people surrounding the machines saying ‘wow’.........just 3-4 four machines lying there waiting for you to ‘touch’.

As from my previous blog (sleepless in seattle), written some 4-5 months ago or so, I mentioned I was working on Amazon’s new eCommerce offering called Amazon Enterprise Solutions (AES). AES is built on Java technology and makes use of services that are provided by Amazon’s core backbone systems. These services are exposed to the AES platform that are useful to building an eCommerce website, such services would be things like Shopping Carts, Checkout process, Wish Lists, Recommendations, Sign-In, etc, etc. AES platform doesn’t have to worry about any of the back end database side of things as this data is handled by Amazon’s core systems via service calls, which means as a developer/implementer of AES, we only need to worry about the application level. AES is made of up a number of packages/libraries (pagelets with corresponding layouts), these packages are the various components that you would use to build an eCommerce website, i.e. headers, navigation, breadcrumbs, personalization, search, etc, etc. Amazon has various in-house tools that are used to slot all these components together with ease. If there is a pagelet or a layout that doesn’t quit ‘do’ the job for a merchant/retailer then AES does allow for customisation of the code base as well. Working with the AES platform was a real pleasure for me and I’m sure Conchango will be there once it comes to the UK.

My role with Amazon was to use the platform to develop a website for one of Amazon’s clients whilst also helping build up the AES platform. That client was the UK company Mothercare. AES had come a long way in the 5 months that I was there and it made its first major internal release in October. There were 4 simultaneous projects going on within Amazon (developing different merchant websites) and Mothercare (www.mothercare.com) was the first to launch on this new platform, which was a major milestone for AES and a major success. Since then Mothercare has won the Online & Catalogue retailer of the year award at the Mother and Baby Awards 2008.

So what do I miss most about Seattle apart from the great work, the warm weather, the friendly people, the crazy Halloween parties, all the summer festivals, talking to a ‘Blue Angels’ US Navy fighter pilot (like our Red Arrows), playing the Wii in the office on Friday afternoons, the beautiful landscapes outside Seattle, the Seattle Mariners baseball game, the £/$ exchange rate (not anymore), the great seafood (especially the Alaskan salmon)..........................well it would have to be the FREE FILTERED COFFEE!

Sleepless in Seattle

Dipan.Mistry — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 04:15:00 GMT

Well after 5 months with Conchango I thought it was about time to write my first blog, I guessed now was a better time than any considering that I write this whilst on my latest project with Conchango in Seattle!! That’s right, Conchango has given me a great opportunity to work in the coffee capital of the world, the rainy city (I now know why!), the birth place of Starbucks, the emerald city and of course home to Mr Microsoft. It’s only been two weeks here but it amazes me how many Starbucks are around in the downtown area. It seems every corner you turn another Starbucks is there to great you with its freshly brewed coffee. But not only do you have Starbucks on every corner there are also other coffee chains that populate the same street. I still wonder how so many coffee shops can remain in business when there are so many around but I guess the demand is there. Seattleites must be on a constant caffeine high :) and this is still not mentioning the endless amounts of filter coffee (Starbucks blend of course) that is available on tap (so to speak) in the offices which is heaven first thing in the morning. I now know why the film ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ was actually called ‘Sleepless’......too much caffeine.

Seattle has a few things to offer from the endless shops and malls in the downtown area to the famous Pike Place Market known for its fish mongers throwing fish around their big stalls (there's always crowds around the stall all day waiting for someone to buy a $200 salmon fish to be thrown across the counter!). The market place is also the birth place of Starbucks (original outside decor still the same) and of course everyone will be there taking pictures and ordering their Grande, decaf, soya, skinny, half-fat, half-this, half-that, cup-of-chinos. The odd street performer here and there (playing on instruments ranging from bagging on empty plastic tubs to mini-pianos) line the streets including a 5 man team belting out tunes from the likes of James Brown to The Temptations. There are also other shops/restaurants/eateries including a cheese shop where its literally churning its own cheese in the shop window to shops that serve the biggest bagels in Seattle to a shop making fresh, hot, melt in your mouth crumpets on a daily basis, the options are endless (forget keeping to any diets in this town!). Of course there's also the famous Seattle Space Needle which should be saved for a sunny weekend.

Well sightseeing apart, Conchango did send me (plus two guys from EMC) to Seattle for a reason and that was to work in partnership with Amazon on their new eCommerce offering called Amazon Enterprise Solutions (AES). Now it’s only been a short period of time working with the Amazon team and this new product but my initial thoughts are that the product looks very promising. Although Amazon Enterprise Solution is still in development (with small touches being applied as I speak or write for that matter) it looks to be a good product and seems it will reduce time in developing an eCommerce site. The AES platform is built on top of Java technology and does a good job of building sites using common reusable components. Common components (that are already coded) could be things like, shopping baskets, wish lists, breadcrumbs, browse navigation, etc, etc. A little configuration and these components can be on your site with very little coding involved. Well I could go into more detail about the inner workings of AES but that would probably bore most of the people reading this but it is worth watching this space in the future. I believe it’s a great position for Conchango to be in, working to be a partner with a global leader in eCommerce by implementing its Enterprise Solutions platform. Looks like more fun and challenging times ahead for Conchango and its people.

And a word of warning to anyone travelling to the states, whenever purchasing anything, be aware that the price on labels/menus are not the final price! Sales tax is always added on at the end, this gets really annoying as you don’t know what the final price is until you get to the counter! For the first few days I’d almost questioned the waitresses that they had over charged me but then I remembered the TAX! Finally, a couple of pics from the Amazon officeJ (Seattle’s American football stadium and Downtown Seattle)

Dipan Mistry Blog

AES - Amazon Enterprise Solutions

Sleepless in Seattle