C9 hosts a number of websites integrated into the c9 DMS

Correct functioning of the website involves website having the ability to send emails to your website customers as though they came from you.

Reliable / safe email sending involves configuring a number of things in your email setup to permit c9's webservers to send these emails.

In scenarios where this is not setup, c9 will instead send emails direct to your client as donotreply@c8software.com.au

Two things need to be setup

1. Sender protection framework (SPF)
2. (Optional)  Domain Keys Identified Email (DKIM)
3. (Optional)  DMARC

Setting up SPF to allow c9 to send email

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c9 provides integration support into PayPal as a payment gateway for c9 based websites. Paypal provides key features which are essential for this industry.  The key challenge with webshopping is that in this industry it is not possible to know the final price at point of checkout on the website.  Issues surrounding freight issues and parts interpretation require an order to be vetted before it is billed.  c9's integration into PayPal works similar to a hotel booking,  the amount is only reserved at point of checkout.  Point of sale operations in c9 will communicate with PayPal and finalise final payment amount capture.

 Step 1 : get a verified merchant account with PayPal

To configure PayPal, you need to enable merchant services with PayPal and get your merchant details verified. This process can take a few weeks, contact PayPal to arrange.  Once done, the following steps show you how to get c9 integrated into PayPal.

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A very frustrating few days shifting our web infrastructure around.  Frustrating and stressful like fixing a bike mid-race.

Changes are almost complete.  Worked quite hard to ensure a smooth transition,  though there have been two major incidents which really should not of happened.

One: a major changeover happened on Friday. The change was relatively smooth though a serious problem went unnoticed for 24 hours.  Online shopping checkouts failed at the point were you entered in a credit card.  Cause of the problem was a missing security/encryption library on new webserver. I noticed this on Saturday morning.  I really should of tested and noticed this prior to Friday so entirely my fault.  All web orders on Friday involving a credit card would of failed.  All the user would of seen was a blank webpage : which is not that indicative of a serious problem.

Second: on Monday our web hosting company were to implement changes to further cement in the new web site.  The task was scheduled for 1 am in the morning but did not proceed for some unknown reason.  I gave them the nod to do it during the day if it will only take a minute or two. Fairly standard request but lots went wrong.  Network access to our websites was unstable throughout the day with multiple outages and it was clear to me that the hosting company could not quickly diagnose or fix the problem.  I ended up instituting changes myself, after a crash course in networking, to bring sites back up.  Still not quite there but at least sites should be good.

A few more hurdles to get over.  Hopefully all the outages are now behind us and it is just tidy up. Moving forward, new web infrastructure should serve our growing needs for a long time to come and when it is time to once again to expand our web gear, the new layout will make future expansion simpler.

Bring on the weekend

This morning we have commissioned more web database servers.

The servers provide us with more storage capacity and more redundancy.

Also you should notice that  web page load times feel more responsive especially parts diagrams should now feel near instantaneous.  Previously load times were approx 1 second to load a parts diagram onto the screen.  Load times are now several times quicker than this.  There are further things we will be doing over the coming weeks to improve this even more.

Parts Magician queries can now provide info for stock availability for dealers who are offline.

So when you send a parts magician request, other dealers do not need to be online in order for that request to be instantly answered.

The system only works for c9 dealers that use c9's online backup service.

The best of both worlds : the accuracy/relevancy of realtime enquiries combined with the availability of a 24x7 database

C9 has provided the industry online OEM diagrams and shopping since 2011.  We now have over 20 dealers running OEM shopping websites with OEM parts from over a dozen different manufacturers. C9 is, by a huge margin, the market leader in providing modern technology designed for a modern retail environment in the motorcycle industry.

Recently Suzuki Australia has began to offer their own solution, in conjunction with a 3rd party web site designer Fox Digital Web, giving dealers more choice for online EPC.    A dealer can assess which solution they feel works best for them.  We believe that c9's solution is a better solution for dealers.  Some of the reasons why we believe our offering is best:

1. Price:  A small setup and training fee ($400) and an ongoing cost of $50 a month
2. Delivery:  Can be setup very quickly, especially if you just want to include OEM diagrams on an existing website.  The system can be up and running in a few hours
3. Features:   Diagrams are hotspotted so users can click on the diagram to select items.  Shopping is integrated into the c9 dealer system so orders appear in c9's point of sale instantaneously.  Pricing and available quantity information is integrated and real-time up to date.  Change a price in your DMS and it automatically instantly updates the price on the website.  C9 website also allows you to list accessories, bikes and other website content.
4. Quality and Relevance:  C9 includes all models available from the dealers EPC resource, including 2013 and at time of writing some 2014 models.  As at time of writing,  Suzuki has a much shorter listing of 2013 models though they are slowly completing the list.
5. Other Suppliers: Include other diagrams from other suppliers on your website without additional cost

The following post explains how to setup google analytics and webmaster tools on your c9 powered website.  It does not provide a tutorial on how to effectively use these products. Only how to get them up and running.

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C9 powered websites allow account customers to request parts ordered are placed on account; making online shopping experience for them very easy.

The website previously would do the following:

• Display their account limit and balance due # of days limit
• Prevent them from using on account payment if they have exceeded their account limits

Just deployed some changes that allow the above to be configured.  Default settings are as follows:

• Do not display account/day limit on checkout
• Do not allow customer to use 'on account' as a payment method if they have exceeded their limits.

If you want to tune these settings for your website, contact Barney and he will arrange it.

The new backup server is now mostly provisioned.  C9 backup databases and content of c9  powered websites replicate near instantaneously.  Most other non critical resources, including this website comment only replicate overnight. Part of this comment is to verify successful automated replication of less critical data.

Two thirds of C9 customers now subscribe to our online backup service.  Taking ownership of protecting your business data is an awesome responsibility.  C9 is a software company; so protecting our own data against information loss is fundamental to our ongoing success as a business operation also.

As such backups are something we spend alot of time thinking about.  Our backup solution could be considered to be massively over-engineered, yet in spite of this we are constantly thinking about the integrity of the solution.  There is no room for complacency.  You can never have too many backups, or systems of control to ensure the fidelity of those backups.

We are currently in the process to adding another backup server into our solution.  The server will serve dual roles, as another backup server and also as a backup to our primary web server; so that if there is a hardware fault with our web server, we can switch internet traffic to the secondary server if necessary.

Whenever you raise an invoice in c9, if you have online backup that information is within a few seconds copied onto:

• 4 physically separate computers. (Our main server, three backup servers)
• 7 different hard disks (under c9's direct control)
• In addition to the above, CDP server is managed by our internet partner, web24, precise disk topology is unknown to us, but I would expect it to be at least a 3 disk RAID 5 array; this is in addition of the 7 disks we directly control.

The addition of a new backup server increases backup coverage from 3 servers and 5 disks.

Online backup is more than just backup. It provides:

• Infrastructure for web based access, web sites. mobile remote inventory management, aussie bike finder and bikesales listings
• Active read verification that the backed up data is both accurate and readable.  Even the most diligent users of c9 do not test that their backups can actually work.  Online backup does this automatically and invisibly in multiple tests and contexts

Server computers do fail, typically we receive one support call every two months relating to server/hard disk failure.

New online backup network infrastructure looks like this: