James Kelly

Buzzy Planet, Inc. needed to be able to quickly create commercial web sites that were easy to update and maintain. The goals to be accomplished were as follows:

• Easy to implement
• Easy to update
• Be XHTML standards compliant
• Compatible with modern browsers
• Allow different systems to be added for different needs
  • Shopping Cart
  • Search
  • Feed Management
  • Search Optimization Features
  • Visitor Tracking
• Easy to grow and expand as needs arose
• Secure

In order to meet all these needs, I looked to the open source community for a base on which to expand. WordPress, a blogging platform, seemed to be the best pick.

WordPress is a full-featured content management system built with PHP and is easily extended in any way imaginable through an extremely flexible plug in and theme system.

One new goal became very apparent once it was decided to go with this approach, any expandability had to occur with absolutely no core code changes. This way all existing sites could be upgraded by simply copying over the new code base with no, or minimal, impact to the sites.

The development for the ongoing needs of this system is fairly easy and straightforward. Whenever new functionality is needed a new plug in or widget (another Word Press system) is created, and most of the time it’s as simple as activating the plug in and configuring some options to get the desired result.

One of the more complex systems was a shopping cart with shipping systems, coupon management, related content, related products, affiliate program and other typical modern commerce concerns. It also needed to be integrated with MS SQL server, which added a bit of challenge since WordPress only uses MYSQL.

Rather than break the cardinal rule of no core code modifications, I chose to operate both MYSQL and MS SQL. This meant that I needed to make certain that a few elements synchronized back and forth between the two databases. I succeeded and I didn’t modify any core code, nor did I modify the structure of the MYSQL database in any way. A future system will likely be created so that everything is MYSQL based.

The way the system goes together, only a few main components of the shopping cart need to be enabled on any site, and then different capabilities can be added by activating plug-ins that depend on the core plug-ins.

The last goal to be met was non-critical customer data needed to remain online to allow customers to view historical information and other proprietary needs I can’t discuss here. Finally, all critical customer data had to be migrated off the Internet so that there was no possibility of a breach due to any kind of security hole.

I can tell you that those goals too were met, but I am bound to not reveal the specifics or the methods used.