Patent ID: 11948147
Assignee: VISA INTERNATIONAL SERVICE ASSOCIATION
Field: IT methods for management (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  H | IPC G  H

Claim 0:
1. A method comprising performing, by a merchant processor gateway:
receiving, from one or more merchant computer systems, first authorization requests corresponding to a first set of transactions;
sending, via a first network communication channel between the merchant processor gateway and an acquirer processor server, the first authorization requests to the acquirer processor server that forwards the first authorization requests to a payment network;
determining an availability of the acquirer processor server;
after determining the availability of the acquirer processor server:
receiving, from the acquirer processor server, first authorization responses; and
sending the first authorization responses to the one or more merchant computer systems, thereby causing completion of the first set of transactions;

subsequently, determining an unavailability of the acquirer processor server,
wherein determining the availability and the unavailability of the acquirer processor server involves:
receiving a number of heartbeat messages from the acquirer processor server over a time period,
comparing the number of heartbeat messages received over the time period to an expected number of heartbeat messages to be received over that time period, the expected number of heartbeat messages determined based on a specified heartbeat message rate and a length of the time period,
when a difference between an expected number of heartbeat messages received and the number of heartbeat messages received is less than a predetermined threshold value, determining the acquirer processor server to be available, and

when the difference between the expected number of heartbeat messages received and the number of heartbeat messages received is greater than the predetermined threshold value, determining the acquirer processor server to be unavailable;
after determining the unavailability of the acquirer processor server:
receiving, from the one or more merchant computer systems, second authorization requests corresponding to a second set of transactions;
sending, via a second network communication channel between the merchant processor gateway and the payment network that does not include the acquirer processor server, the second authorization requests to the payment network, thus bypassing the acquirer processor server;

receiving, from the payment network via the second network communication channel, second authorization responses; and
sending the second authorization responses to the one or more merchant computer systems, thereby causing completion of the second set of transactions.