ATMs Are IT Too!

September 5, 2017 / G C Network / Comments Off on ATMs Are IT Too!

Thank You GetVoIP!!

By G C Network | April 25, 2014

Thank you for the honor of being named a “Top 100 Cloud Professionals to Follow on G+”! Congratulations also to my 99 colleagues.  Read more at: ↑ Grab this Headline…

Facilitators Announced For NGA Agile Cloud Brainstorming Event

By G C Network | April 14, 2014

The Information Technology Acquisition Advisory Council (ITAAC) and the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) are announcing a slate of innovative leaders to serve as facilitators for the upcoming  “Agile Sourcing Environment…

MBO Partners Spotlights GovCloud Founder Kevin L. Jackson

By G C Network | April 6, 2014

Associate Spotlight Interview with Kevin L. JacksonMBO Associate Since 10/2013 1)    Tell us a little bit about what you do.I am the CEO and founder of GovCloud Network, LLC. In…

ITAAC/ICH and TIA To Host Commercial Cloud Sourcing Brainstorming Session for NGA

By G C Network | April 1, 2014

The Information Technology Acquisition Advisory Council (ITAAC) and Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) are honored to team with NGA in hosting the first “Agile Sourcing Environment for Commercial Cloud” brainstorming session,…

Author and Tech Strategist Melvin Greer Profiled by WashingtonExec

By G C Network | March 17, 2014

Congratulations to my NCOIC colleague and dear friend Melvin Greer on his impressive WashingtonExec interview. A senior fellow and chief strategist at Lockheed Martin, Mel has more than 29 years’…

IT Risk Management Summit – March 26, 2013 – Reston, VA

By G C Network | March 12, 2014

In response to growing demand for formal software risk and quality management tools, the nations’ most respected standards bodies and IT communities of practice have joined forces to advance the…

PerspecSys Survey Reveals Cloud-based Security Concerns for 2014

By G C Network | March 10, 2014

Today PerspecSys announced the results of a survey conducted at the 2014 RSA Conference concerning the attitudes and policies of organizations towards cloud-based security. After polling 130 security professionals on…

NCOIC Debuts Roadmap for Designing, Managing Cyber-secure Hybrid Computing Environment

By G C Network | March 5, 2014

Open process by the Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium uses cloud infrastructure to cut computing costs in half and enable collaboration by different systems and users WASHINGTON—March 5, 2014—The Network…

Why State & Local Governments Should be Prepared for Cloud

By G C Network | February 17, 2014

You are invited to attend the Cloud Webinar Series: Why State & Local Governments Should be Prepared for Cloud. This educational webinar is brought to you by RISC Networks, and…

IBM Hybrid Cloud Debate: Experts debate: Are Hybrid Clouds the End All Be All?

By G C Network | February 12, 2014

A hybrid cloud may become the solution as the debate between public vs private cloud becomes so 2013. The industry’s experts will debate on when the hybrid clouds are and…

That world of homogenous IT technology managed entirely by the internal IT organization has long disappeared.  Operations today require efficient and global management of technologically heterogeneous environments. The challenges and mistakes organizations make when tackling this important task include:
  • Operational disconnects caused by ineffective internal communications;
  • Resource contention when multiple, independently developed project plans compete;
  • Incompatible technical documentation; and
  • Inconsistent communications with vendors.
A case in point is the finance industry which has endured some rather unique pains in this area, especially when it comes to ATM Fleet Management. According to Diebold Nixdorf, a world leader in connected commerce, this problem has been caused by three major trends that have changed the nature of ATM network management.
The first, and broadest driver of these changes has been the rapid adoption of newer and more sophisticated technology. Some reports cite that in 2014, up to 95% of the world’s ATMs were running Windows XP. That year, the entire industry was basically forced to transition to Windows 7 and this was when some banks were still using OS/2!
“These more sophisticated systems, requiring updates, patches, and support in real-time, along with software and hardware that can operate nimbly in an agnostic ecosystem. And as more and more transactions are migrated to self-service terminals, the devices must advance in complexity, too.”
Security challenges, the second key trend, are also morphing daily as threats become more and more diverse. Specific problems include physical security of the cash inside the terminal, malware threats to software and the use of data skimming devices. As banks expand their self-service networks, competition around their ability to deliver greater functionality and more complex transactions within an even tighter personally identifiable information regulatory environment is daunting.
The final trend is around management and overhead. As the traditional focus of IT support groups has changed from PCs, firewalls, routers towards the administration of an extensive network of remote self-service terminals, the scope of the required core competencies has changed tremendously. These teams must now deal with multi-vendor hardware, software, security, and services. To deal with these tectonic shifts, financial institutions are now looking to partner with technology services companies.
In this strategy shift, they are looking for a provider that brings broad multi-vendor management skills and analytics-based, proactive technical support. Additional criteria for selecting a multi-vendor management partner include:
  • Global presence with the ability to provide on-site engineering support to any ATM site;
  • Demonstrated continuity of support as exhibited by an ability to dispatch the same customer engineers on most occasions;
  • Customer engineers with proven and demonstrable experience with the same type of installation and configuration;
  • Support organizations with the breadth and depth of resources necessary to deliver high-quality support with minimal service disruption; and
  • A global logistics infrastructure capable of providing the timely delivery of parts from any vendor, if required.
IBM has proven to be a major player in this space. Their ATM and branch services support provides a predictive maintenance solution that uses advanced analytics to identify potential concerns. They then work with financial organization’s IT teams to schedule proactive support services. This proactive approach ensures proper intervention before customer service is disrupted. As a proven, global provider of multi-vendor service support, IBM can be your single agnostic vendor supporting your multi-vendor ATM environment. If your team is in need of a multi-vendor support partner, consider IBM.

This post was brought to you by IBM Global Technology Services. For more content like this, visit Point B and Beyond.

 

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