System and method for improving reliability of distributed electronic transactions

Abstract

A system and method are disclosed that separate control functionality from the management functionality for conducting electronic transactions. The control functions are performed by a third party resulting in a low overhead since significant overhead is incurred in response to an anomalous event, thus facilitating high throughput electronic transactions when anomalous events are infrequent. Further, the third party does not need to have access to confidential information since it only controls by observing, validating and certifying the observed communications in a specified manner to prevent confidential information from leaving the context of the transaction. Management of the transactions based on consideration of substantive information is provided by the participants. A preferred system of the invention comprises a validation authority, a logical boundary at which validation authority undertakes control of communications, and validation rules specifying parameters for observation and the nature of comparisons.

1 . A method for controlling an electronic transaction comprising:
 observing an electronic communication by detecting a plurality of specified parameters;   receiving a sender indicator and a receiver indicator based on the observed parameters in the electronic communication as sent by a sender and received by a receiver respectively;   validating the electronic communication by comparing the sender and receiver indicators, wherein validation comprises determining whether the electronic communication as sent by the sender and received by the receiver is in the same state;   generating a validation report based on validation of each of a request and a corresponding response communication, wherein the request and response communications form a service pair; and   certifying a business process comprising a plurality of service pairs based on the validation report for at least one service pair in the business process.