Overview
The Item Content Manager (ICM) for Amazon software solution enables simplified and rapid integration with the Amazon.com Merchant@ Platform. Compatible with both Merchant@ 1.0 and Merchant@ 0.5 standards, the Item Content Manager (ICM) for Amazon is the only dual standard integration product on the marketplace today and the only solution that has been successfully deployed in both Europe and the US. The Item Content Manager (ICM) for Amazon is a software middleware application that provides an industrial strength, cross platform , asynchronous communication service between the merchant and Amazon. The application handles bidirectional communication of data payloads with the Amazon.com Merchant SOAP and AIM frameworks. Data payloads and application functionality are dependant on the Merchant@ implementation protocol implemented by Amazon in local markets. The feature set and specified data payloads for Amazon UK Merchant@ 0.5 implementation can be found here.

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Technology Platform

The Item Content Manager (ICM) for Amazon is built on the Sun Microsystems Java Enterprise Edition 5 specification . A combination of the Java 2 platform, Enterprise Edition connector architecture, the Amazon Inventory Management API and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) technologies provide a standard mechanism to interact with the Amazon Merchant@ platform.

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Architectural Concept

The Item Content Manager (ICM) for Amazon application is essentially a framework of interconnected subsystems. The framework components are built upon a Message Orientated framework and consist of application adapters, messaging services, routing services, data translation services, data transformation services and workflow process management. This approach addresses some of the problems associated with point-to-point integration by providing a standardized structure to connect heterogenous information systems together.

Essentially, an event occurs in one component and triggers the activation of the messaging bus, which results in the data payload getting processed by another component. The messaging is asynchronous, meaning that the receiving component does not send any message back nor does the sending component expect a return message.

Architecturally, the Item Content Manager (ICM) for Amazon can and has been used in a one-to-many business environment whereby a single Trader instance populates a number of online ebusiness entities. In this model, the application uses a variant to Message Orientated Middleware (MOM) called the Publish and Subscribe model. In this model, the ICM application pushes information onto the messaging bus, which is then picked up by other online applications that have previously subscribed to receive that particular data content.

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