pouët.net

OK, I just got around to wondering how Ecommerce, ie. money transfer works - if you're sending 10 bucks to someone, your banks server has to contact his bank's server, and Rs. 10 has to be deducted from your account, and Rs. 10 added to his, right....? As I understand it, they use Transactional Databases, whereby if the server crashes in between the deduction and the addition, the whole thing can be rolled Back, i.e. the money goes back into the senders account...? How does this "Transactional Database" work, exactly...? And - which are the actual products on the market which can handle this type of shit? Does MySQL do it?

Also - what are "payment Gateways"? (like Worldpay in the UK?) If your bank's server is contacting his, then what is the need for someone in the middle, like when you shop on an Ecommerce site?

Finally - leaving aside shopping, for just a bank transfer - it's obvious that for a hugely loaded server, when you click "Send", and it replies "OK", the money hasn't actually gone - there is a queue, right? What does this involve exactly? I've heard of things like RabbitMQ on Linux (though not know shit about it), is it this type of thing that's used?


I realise fully well that this has nothing to do with the demoscene, but 1) there are people here I'm guessing, who have formally studied computer science who might know these things, and 2) all of you guys SHOP online, right? :) (and even 3) you may actually be involved in making E-commerce websites yourself!). I'm sure you're curious as to how it works...?

Thanks.

No, banks don't use MySQL.

How e-commerce works.

1. Money
2. Pants Off
3. ...
4. Profit

There's a museum in Frankfurt run by the European Central Bank that has all this very neatly explained in an interactive display that's really cool. Maybe ypu should do your own research once and go visit. Or use google.