Abstract: A distributed transaction processing system is disclosed in which a process automation application receives a transaction request from a requesting application. In response to the request, the process automation application obtains a transaction definition for the transaction requested by the requesting application. This transaction definition comprises a plurality of operation definitions, which indicate a plurality of operations constituting the requested transaction. For each of the operation definitions in the transaction definition, the process automation application produces an operation request. These operation requests are sent to one or more service applications, and one or more responses are received by the process automation application after the operations are performed by the service applications. Based on the responses, the process automation application produces a transaction response, which is sent to the requesting application. In this manner, the requested transaction is completed.

Abstract: A process automation application, referred to as a commerce exchange server, for sending transaction messages between application programs uses a transaction definition data structure for specifying the component operations and processing logic that comprise the transaction. The data structure specifies one or more operations that constitute the transaction, instructions for producing the input data needed for each operation, and conditional logic for specifying constraints on the sequence of operation execution. The conditional logic may include one or more expressions, ranging from simple to complex, including variables, math operations and functions, that are evaluated using the inputs or outputs of one or more prior operations to determine execution order of subsequent operations. The transaction definition data structure may also provide for broadcast operations and for conditioning the success of their execution.

Abstract: A general purpose application interaction protocol, referred to herein as the Commerce Exchange Interaction Protocol (CXIP), governs the exchange of data between applications resident in computers in a distributed network such as the Internet, providing for application interoperability. CXIP enables process communications among network-distributed software applications, particularly, but not exclusively, among software applications having dissimilar platforms, language dependencies or vendor dependencies. Data structures, object and method invocation requests are exchanged between applications by means of XML documents based on CXIP semantics. The application interaction protocol, which is not specific to any particular functional domain and specifies interactions that are independent of transactional content, includes four component parts: message formats, message types, exchange semantics and transportation assumptions.

Abstract: A distributed transaction processing system includes a process automation application, referred to as a commerce exchange server, that manages transaction processing and message flow among application programs in a distributed computer network such as the Internet. The system includes a specially designed application interaction protocol that implements the request-reply, publish-notify and broadcast application interaction models. The system also uses a novel transaction definition data structure for specifying the component operations and processing logic that comprise the transaction. The transaction definition data structure allows for the use of conditional logic that specifies constraints on the sequence of operation execution.