ATMs Are IT Too!

Cloud Computing and the Process Integration Era

By G C Network | December 17, 2008

The Industry Advisory Council (IAC) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to fostering improved communications and understanding between government and industry. through its affiliation with the American Council for Technology…

The Tactical Cloud

By G C Network | December 16, 2008

When cloud computing first came in vogue, there was a rather serious discussion about the private cloud concept. The whole idea of cloud computing seemed to argue against implementing such…

“Cloud Musings” Now on SYS-CON Media “Cloud Computing Journal” !!

By G C Network | December 15, 2008

I’m happy to announce that a recent “Cloud Musings” article, “Commercial vs Federal Cloud Computing ” has been reposted on SYS-CON Media’s “Cloud Computing Journal“. Thank you SYS-CON for making…

How to make clouds interoperable and standard !!

By G C Network | December 12, 2008

This has been a huge part of my life over the past few weeks! This is my personal view. WARNING: DON’T EXPECT THE ANSWER TO BE FOUND BELOW !!! There…

The Tension between Public and Private Clouds

By G C Network | December 11, 2008

Last week, during discussion on cloud interoperability and standards in Israel, I saw for the first time a real dichotomy in the value of public (external) and private (internal) clouds.…

Cloud Computing for Continuity of Operations (COOP)

By G C Network | December 10, 2008

Recently, I’ve been focusing on cloud computing for COOP. The way I looked at it, many government agencies are already using commercial shared facilities as COOP sites and that the…

NCOIC Plenary Session

By G C Network | December 9, 2008

Hopping a plane to the west coast today to attend the NCOIC Plenary in Costa Mesa, California. First day “Cloud Computing for Net-Centric Operations” agenda includes: David Ryan, Chief Architect…

Dataline named “Top 100 Cloud Computing Company”

By G C Network | December 9, 2008

SYS-CON’s Cloud Computing Journal included Dataline in its expanded list of the most active players in the cloud ecosystem. In adding Dataline to the “Top 100” list, Jeremy Geelan noted…

Autoscaling into the cloud- Good or Bad?

By G C Network | December 8, 2008

I always thought saw the ability to autoscale into a cloud infrastructure as a good thing. George Reese presented a differing view on the O’Reilly blog recently. “Auto-scaling is the…

Cloudera must be reading the script!

By G C Network | December 4, 2008

“Cloud computing leapt out as the most obvious way to address enterprise large data problems” – Ken Pierce, IT Specialist, DIA-DS/C4ISR “We view Hadoop as the key enabler…[in] optimizing the…

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.

 

Cloud Musings

( Thank you. If you enjoyed this article, get free updates by email or RSS – © Copyright Kevin L. Jackson 2016)

 

Follow me at https://Twitter.com/Kevin_Jackson
Posted in

G C Network