Specialized techniques

 Ping

The Ping command is primarily used to determine if the connection between the Merchant and the Acquirer is down. If the connection is down, then a Ping can be used to poll the iVeri Gateway to see when the status is back up.

The Ping command checks that:

• the merchant is communicating with the iVeri Gateway, and

• the merchant configuration is active, and

• the iVeri Gateway is online, and

• the iVeri Gateway is communicating with the acquirer.

This is different to checking network connectivity to the iVeri Gateway, where a network ping should be employed. The Ping takes an ApplicationID as a mandatory input parameter and is sometimes referred to as an ApplicationID Ping.

As mentioned previously, an iVeri transaction involves communication between the following players:

Card Holder <-> Merchant <-> iVeri <-> Gateway <-> Acquirer <-> Association <-> Issuer

An Acquirer can route a transaction to many different Associations, and an Association can route a transaction to many different Issuers.

An individual Transaction may reply to with a ResultCode of 1 or 9, meaning something is wrong between the Merchant and the card issuer. However, in such a case the merchant does not know if the problem was between the Acquirer and an Issuer (due to the routing of the PAN), or between the Merchant and the Acquirer.

Although the individual transaction can be automatically retried, the Merchant may have some business rules for the case when the connection between the Merchant and the Acquirer is down, such as:

• go into Store and Forward mode

• notify a certain person

• show a different website page upon checkout

The Ping code of conduct:

• The Ping command should be used only when a merchant needs to know the connection status between the Merchant and the Acquirer after either:

  • A service startup or a Transaction result code 1 or 9 (in doubt)

  • A Ping result code 1 or 9 (connection down)

• A merchant should assume that the system is up. A Ping should not be used when the merchant thinks that the connection is up and the above conditions do not hold (i.e it should not be used to indiscriminately repeatedly poll the iVeriGateway).

• When polling to see if the status is back up, a Ping may not be more frequent than every 20 seconds.

A merchant abusing the Ping command may have their use of it suspended.

Ping sample:

{

    "version":"2.0",

    "CertificateID":"{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}",

    "ProductType":"Enterprise",

    "ProductVersion":"WebAPI",

    "Direction":"Request",

    "System":{

        "ApplicationID":"{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}",

        "Command":"Ping",

        "Mode":"LIVE"

    }

}