IBM REDP-4372-00 manual Software on a POS system from an architectural point of view

Draft Document for Review November 15, 2007 3:27 pm 4372ch01.fm

Provisioning Manager for OS Deployment it is possible to maintain the deployment and re-deployment of Operating System with suitable drivers, a Java™ Runtime environment and the applications to run directly on the operating system or on top of the Java Runtime environment. The applications should in this case be considered static, that is; the application will not during deployment receive any modifications to reflect the specific system it is installed to.

Data updated at regular intervals, including for example weekly or daily pricelists or special content to print on receipts, are not suitable for deployment via Tivoli Provisioning Manager for OS Deployment. This would require frequent, perhaps weekly updates to the image. Instead, this should be automated using other systems or scripts (which may be part of the static data that can be deployed using Tivoli Provisioning Manager for OS Deployment).

Realtime dynamic data consist mainly of transactions. For obvious reasons, these should never be of concern to a specific point-of-sale system. Transactions should always be handled by an enterprise application server with capabilities to perform roll back and roll forward, and preferably be based on a messaging system between POS systems and transaction servers.

Figure 1-3 Software on a POS system from an architectural point of view

Chapter 1. Introduction 9