Business Web sites have undergone a rapid transformation, from static "electronic brochures" with limited ability to publish current information and no ability to transact business; they have evolved into dynamic and complex entities with highly specialized commerce functions. As a result, many enterprises now leverage the Web's power to automate or streamline traditional business processes. This transformation has taken business web sites from a position of little or no strategic importance to full-blown business applications that in many cases are an organization's primary means of achieving their strategic and operational goals.

Unfortunately, the way e-business sites are developed and managed has not kept pace with their growth in strategic importance. As a result, many sites have significant defects and fall short of realizing their potential. One of the main reasons for this lies in the fact that the traditional software development models used for application development have fundamental limitations when applied to web site development. In particular, they create sites that are difficult to manage on both a comprehensive and a detailed level within time frames that are acceptable on the Web.

Managing a Web site as a strategic e-business application requires a new architecture that allows developers to use a formal design process to establish the layout, style, and behavior of a site while allowing content providers and designers to make ongoing changes promptly, without affecting the site's performance or relying on the development process of the core Web site.

This paper:

1. Describes the evolution of business web sites
2. Explains why organizations must manage web sites as dynamic business applications
3. Describes the architectural model essential for maintaining these dynamic Web-based business applications