This section of the Reference document guides you through deploying an optional webservice module on the SKLES appliance that permits relaying payment transactions to a payment gateway (PG). This is accomplished through a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) POST method, or a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) action within an HTTP POST method.

The business benefit of using the Relay Webservice is that the application dealing with the PG does not need to decrypt credit card numbers (CCN) before sending transaction to the gateway – the SKLES appliance can perform this service (functioning like a proxy) on behalf of the application and, thus, reduce or eliminate the need for decrypted CCN on the application infrastructure. However, to relay transactions, the SKLES appliance must have direct network connectivity to the PG's web server (either over the internet or through a virtual private network).

Here is a sample representation of how an infrastructure might look when configured to use the Relay Webservice to multiple payment gateways:

In this configuration, the site has:

• A web-tier in the demilitarized zone (DMZ), receiving customer transactions from the internet;
• An application tier with servers and databases that represent the business logic and data;
• A PCI zone containing the SKLES appliances;
• Three payment gateways: PG1, which offers both, an HTTP and SOAP interface to their transaction gateway, PG2, which only offers an HTTP interface and PG3, which only offers a SOAP interface.

One may connect any number of payment gateways to the SKLES appliances, as long as the gateways offer standard HTTP or SOAP interfaces to their services.