System, method and article of manufacture for managing transactions in a high availability system

• US 6,026,379 A
• Filed: 06/17/1996
• Issued: 02/15/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 06/17/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP (Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Company)
• Original Assignee: Verifone, Inc. (Verifone Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Kramer, Glenn A., Nguyen, Trong, Rowney, Kevin T. B., Haller, Daniel R., Berger, David A.
• Primary Examiner(s): Peeso, Thomas R.
• Application Number:
  US08/664,634
• Time in Patent Office: 1,338 Days
• Field of Search: 705/26, 705/27, 705/39, 705/44, 705/34
• US Class Current: 705/34
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/00 Payment architectures, schemes or protocols apparatus for performing or posting payment transactions G07F7/08, G07F19/00; electronic cash registers G07G1/12
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/085 involving remote charge determination or related payment systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/10 specially adapted for electronic funds transfer [EFT] systems; specially adapted for home banking systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/102 Bill distribution or payments
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/04 Billing or invoicing

Abstract

An architecture is disclosed allowing a server to communicate bidirectionally with a gateway over a first communication link, over which service requests are initiated by the server. In response to a transaction received from a host legacy system at the gateway, the gateway parses one or more transaction response values from the host message, maps the one or more transaction response values to a canonical response code, and stores the canonical response code in a transaction log. According to a broad aspect of a preferred embodiment of the invention, communication networks that employ transactions between applications must effectively manage transactions that flow over the network. In addition, networking systems must also detect counterfeit transactions, especially, when the networking systems are utilized for financial transactions. An active, on-line database is utilized as a transaction log to track original requests, valid retrys and detect fradulant transactions. The transaction log serves as a memory cache where the received host response is returned to a valid retry transaction should the original response fail to reach a server because of a communications problem.

Claims

1. A method for communicating between a server, a gateway and a host, comprising the steps of:

(a) establishing a first communication link between the server and the gateway;

(b) logging transaction information in a first transaction database at the server;

(c) transmitting a transaction from the server to the gateway over the first communication link;

(d) establishing a second communication link between the gateway and the host;

(e) logging transaction information in a second transaction database at the gateway;

(f) transmitting a transaction from the gateway to the host over the second communication link;

(g) receiving a transaction response from the host;

(h) parsing the transaction response to obtain an index to the corresponding logged transaction information in the second transaction database in the gateway;

(i) updating the second transaction database in the gateway with information from the transaction response from the host;

(j) transmitting the transaction response to the server over the first communication link;

(k) parsing the transaction response to obtain an index to the corresponding logged transaction information in the first transaction database in the server;

(l) updating the first transaction database in the server with information from the transaction response from the host; and

(m) displaying payment information corresponding to the transaction on a display.

2. The method of claim 1, including the step of the server detecting a transaction response failure and resending the corresponding transaction from the first transaction database with appropriate modifications.

3. The method of claim 1, including the step of detecting a valid retry transaction, retrieving information from the second transaction database at the gateway and updating the transaction with previously received host transaction results from the retrieved information before transmitting the transaction to the server.

4. The method of claim 1, including the step of detecting an invalid transaction by parsing a transaction to obtain a key and comparing the key to keys in the second transaction database at the gateway, determining that a key from the transaction is identical to a key in the second transaction database and rejecting the transaction.

5. The method of claim 1, including the step of detecting a stale transaction by comparing a time stamp field in the transaction to a current time and rejecting the transaction if the differential exceeds a predefined value.

6. The method of claim 5, including the step of modifying the predefined value dynamically.

7. The method of claim 1, including the step of providing support for a secure electronic protocol.

8. The method of claim 1, including the step of determining whether the transaction is a retry transaction by comparing one or more fields of the transactions with one or more corresponding fields in a previous transaction.

9. An apparatus for communicating between a server, a gateway and a host, comprising:

(a) means for establishing a first communication link between the server and the gateway;

(b) means for logging transaction information in a first transaction database at the server;

(c) means for transmitting a transaction from the server to the gateway over the first communication link;

(d) means for establishing a second communication link between the gateway and the host;

(e) means for logging transaction information in a second transaction database at the gateway;

(f) means for transmitting a transaction from the gateway to the host over the second communication link;

(g) means for receiving a transaction response from the host;

(h) means for parsing the transaction response to obtain an index to the corresponding logged transaction information in the second transaction database in the gateway;

(i) means for updating the second transaction database in the gateway with information from the transaction response from the host;

(j) means for transmitting the transaction response to the server over the first communication link;

(k) means for parsing the transaction response to obtain an index to the corresponding logged transaction information in the first transaction database in the server;

(l) means for updating the first transaction database in the server with information from the transaction response from the host; and

(m) means for displaying payment information corresponding to the transaction on a display.

10. The apparatus as recited in claim 9, including means for detecting a transaction response failure and resending the corresponding transaction from the first transaction database with appropriate modifications.

11. The apparatus as recited in claim 9, including means for detecting a valid retry transaction, retrieving information from the second transaction database at the gateway and updating the transaction with previously received host transaction results from the retrieved information before transmitting the transaction to the server.

12. The apparatus as recited in claim 9, including means for detecting an invalid transaction by parsing a transaction to obtain a key and comparing the key to keys in the second transaction database at the gateway, determining that a key from the transaction is identical to a key in the second transaction database and rejecting the transaction.

13. The apparatus as recited in claim 9, including means for detecting a stale transaction by comparing a time stamp field in the transaction to a current time and rejecting the transaction if the differential exceeds a predefined value.

14. The apparatus as recited in claim 13, including means for modifying the predefined value dynamically.

15. The apparatus as recited in claim 9, including means for providing support for a secure electronic protocol.

16. The apparatus of claim 9, including means for determining whether the transaction is a retry transaction by comparing one or more fields of the transactions with one or more corresponding fields in a previous transaction.

17. A computer program embodied on a computer-readable medium for communicating between a server, a gateway and a host, comprising:

(a) a code segment for establishing a first communication link between the server and the gateway;

(b) a code segment for logging transaction information in a first transaction database at the server;

(c) a code segment for transmitting a transaction from the server to the gateway over the first communication link;

(d) a code segment for establishing a second communication link between the gateway and the host;

(e) a code segment for logging transaction information in a second transaction database at the gateway;

(f) a code segment for transmitting a transaction from the gateway to the host over the second communication link;

(g) a code segment for receiving a transaction response from the host;

(h) a code segment for parsing the transaction response to obtain an index to the corresponding logged transaction information in the second transaction database in the gateway;

(i) means for updating the second transaction database in the gateway with information from the transaction response from the host;

(j) means for transmitting the transaction response to the server over the first communication link;

(k) means for parsing the transaction response to obtain an index to the corresponding logged transaction information in the first transaction database in the server;

(l) means for updating the first transaction database in the server with information from the transaction response from the host; and

(m) means for displaying payment information corresponding to the transaction on a display.

18. The computer program as recited in claim 17, including a code segment for detecting a transaction response failure and resending the corresponding transaction from the first transaction database with appropriate modifications.

19. The computer program as recited in claim 17, including a code segment for detecting a valid retry transaction, retrieving information from the second transaction database at the gateway and updating the transaction with previously received host transaction results from the retrieved information before transmitting the transaction to the server.

20. The computer program as recited in claim 17, including a code segment for detecting an invalid transaction by parsing a transaction to obtain a key and comparing the key to keys in the second transaction database at the gateway, determining that a key from the transaction is identical to a key in the second transaction database and rejecting the transaction.

21. The computer program as recited in claim 17, including a code segment for detecting a stale transaction by comparing a time stamp field in the transaction to a current time and rejecting the transaction if the differential exceeds a predefined value.

22. The computer program as recited in claim 21, including means for modifying the predefined value dynamically.

23. The computer program as recited in claim 17, including means for providing support for a secure electronic protocol.

24. The computer program as recited in claim 17, a transaction can be recovered when a failure occurs.

25. The computer program of claim 17, including a code segment for determining whether the transaction is a retry transaction by comparing one or more fields of the transactions with one or more corresponding fields in a previous transaction.