Methods and apparatus for the interoperability and manipulation of data in a compuer network

A system for exchanging data, comprising

• a) a third party server;
• b) a web host server;
• c) a commerce server having a trading partner profile table;
• d) a first network connecting the customer computer, web host server and commerce server;
• e) an applications server connected to the commerce server by a second network, the applications server responsive to remote procedure calls from the commerce server.

A method for exchanging data, comprising;

• a) an initiator who initiates the transaction, the transaction including data, selected from the group consisting of an application server, a third party server, a web host server, and a commerce server;
• b) a responder which receives the transaction selected from the group consisting of the application server, the third party server, the web host server, and the commerce server;
• c) a point to point secure transfer protocol using high level encryption for sending and receiving the transaction, the protocol comprising;
• 1) computer readable instruction code means for establishing an active listener via an event wait state;
• 2) computer readable instruction code means for accessing the trading partner profile table and determining the identity of the initiator, what transactions the initiator and responder have mutually agreed to allow, determine a location and format of data for the transaction and determine allowable values;
• 3) computer readable instruction code means for generating a security error and terminating the code if the initiator is not authorized;
• 4) computer readable instruction code means for writing activity to an activity log;
• 5) computer readable instruction code means for determining and processing an event state, the event state selected from the group consisting of idle, session request, session confirm, key request, key confirm, data package, next data package, package confirm, end request, and end confirm;
• 6) establishing a business conversation between trading partners, the business conversation comprised of specific time or event driven transaction sets;
• 7) computer readable instruction code means for building a header and cargo appropriate for the event state;
• 8) computer readable instruction code means for generating a unique encryption key pair for each transmission;
• 9) computer readable instructions for compressing and encrypting the data using the unique encryption key pair;
• 10) computer readable instruction means for sending the data to the responder that prevents the data from being stored on a server hard drive while the data is in transit between the initiator and responder;
• 11) computer readable instruction code means for receiving, decrypting and decompressing the data.

A queue based method for initiating and managing a business conversation, wherein an inbound transmission originates from the group consisting of a web host and a third party server, the business conversation comprising at least one transaction and comprising a commerce server, the commerce server comprising a trading partner profile table, a transaction engine queue, a reply requirements queue, a transaction engine outbound queue, a SDS transaction queue, and a transport protocol outbound queue, the commerce server being communicatively coupled by a first network to at least one of a web host server and a third party server, and the commerce server being communicatively coupled by a second network to an application server, the steps comprising:

• a) receiving an inbound request, determining the initiator and responder, decode and decompress the request, determine the output destination and adding to the transaction engine queue;
• b) parsing the inbound transmission into at least one transaction, authorizing the initiator, preparing a data structure for each transaction and returning the transaction to the transaction engine queue;
• c) building and managing the business conversation by utilizing the business transaction map and forwarding the transactions to the appropriate queue selected from the reply requirements queue, the transport protocol outbound queue and the SDS transaction queue;

A queue based method for initiating and managing a business conversation, wherein an outbound transmission originates from an applications server, the business conversation comprising at least one transaction and comprising a commerce server, the commerce server comprising a trading partner profile table, a transaction engine queue, a reply requirements queue, a transaction engine outbound queue, a SDS transaction queue, and a transport protocol outbound queue, the commerce server being communicatively coupled by a first network to at least one of a web host server and a third party server, and the commerce server being communicatively coupled by a second network to an application server, the steps comprising:

• a) receiving an outbound transaction, reading, parsing and formatting of the transaction and adding to the transaction engine outbound queue;
• b) parsing of transaction to the recipients pre-determined format based on the overall database structure map;
• c) determining the recipient of at least one transaction, building the outbound transaction and forwarding to the transaction engine queue;
• d) building and managing of at least one future conversational transaction and forwarding the future transaction to the reply requirements queue;
• e) compressing, logging and encoding the outbound transaction;
• f) transmission of the transaction to it's final destination.