Introducing the promising server

The Promising server is a server that stores and maintains inventory and availability-related configuration and information in one central location for all participating fulfillment channels and organizations.

In today’s business environment, orders for a business can be placed through different fulfillment channels, such as the Web, a store, or a call center. Instead of each channel maintaining its own inventory information on a separate Order server, the Promising server can be used to house inventory and availability-related configuration and information for these Order servers, thus providing a consolidated picture of availability and inventory updates at the business level. When an order is placed via the Web, a store, or a call center, the applicable Order server communicates with the Promising server to retrieve the availability and to update the supply and demand information, as applicable.

OrderServerAndPromisingServerOverview

In such distributed deployment configurations, the Order server and Promising server are installed as follows:

  • Order servers can be installed in either a single-instance sharded deployment or a single-instance nonsharded deployment.
  • The Promising server is installed as a single-instance nonsharded deployment.

Notes:

  • Availability information is retrieved synchronously from the Promising server using an HTTPS call.
  • Inventory demand or supply updates on the Promising server happen asynchronously using JMS queues.
  • The Promising server can process orders and shipments if the orders and shipments are created directly on the Promising server.