How Mainframe(System z) addresses ATM, EFT, and POS processing Requirements?

ATM and POS transactions, which are business critical transactions that require a platform
(hardware and software) that provides robust levels of reliability, availability, and scalability.

The IBM System z server and z/OS operating system provides an ideal environment to host
payment systems. In the following sections, we list the processing requirements that can be
met when running on a System z platform.

1. Availability

2. Parallel Sysplex Clustering

3. Manageability

4. Security

5. Scalability

6. Dynamic Workload balancing

7. IBM Integrated Cryptographic service Facility

8. Integration with External Authorization Systems.

1. Availablity:

System z provides 24-hour a day, 7-days per week availability, which includes scheduled
maintenance. Continuous availability goes beyond just hardware fault tolerance; it is
achieved by a combination of hardware, application code, and good system management
practices.

On a server basis, System z systems are equipped with features that provide for very high
availability:
Redundant I/O interconnect
Concurrent Capacity Backup Downgrade (CBU Undo)
Concurrent memory upgrade
Enhanced driver maintenance
Capacity backup upgrade
On/Off capacity

2. Parallel Sysplex clustering

When configured properly, a Parallel Sysplex® cluster has no single point-of-failure and can
provide customers with near continuous application availability over planned and unplanned
outages. Events that otherwise seriously impact application availability (such as failures in
hardware elements or critical operating system components) have no, or reduced, impact in a
Parallel Sysplex environment.

With a Parallel Sysplex cluster, it is possible to construct a parallel processing environment
with no single point-of-failure. Because all systems in the Parallel Sysplex can have
concurrent access to all critical applications and data, the loss of a system due to either
hardware or software failure does not necessitate loss of application availability. Peer
instances of a failing subsystem executing on remaining healthy system nodes can take over
recovery responsibility for resources that are held by the failing instance.

Alternatively, the failing subsystem can be automatically restarted on still-healthy systems
using automatic restart capabilities to perform recovery for work in progress at the time of the
failure. While the failing subsystem instance is unavailable, new work requests can be
redirected to other data-sharing instances of the subsystem on other cluster nodes to provide
continuous application availability across the failure and subsequent recovery, which
provides the ability to mask planned and unplanned outages from the end user.

A Parallel Sysplex cluster consists of up to 32 z/OS images coupled to one or more Coupling
Facilities (CFs or ICFs) using high-speed specialized links for communication. The Coupling
Facilities, at the heart of a Parallel Sysplex cluster, enable high speed, read/write data
sharing and resource sharing among all of the z/OS images in a cluster. All images are also
connected to a common time source to ensure that all events are properly sequenced in time.

The flexibility of System z, z/OS, and Parallel Sysplex allows customers to create many high
availability system designs, from multiple LPARs in a Parallel Sysplex on multiple System z
servers, to dual LPARs in a Parallel Sysplex on a single System z server.

3. Manageability

A wide array of tools, which include the IBM Tivoli® product and other operational facilities,
contribute to continuous availability. IBM Autonomic Computing facilities and tools provide for
completely fault tolerant, manageable systems that can be upgraded and maintained without
downtime.

Autonomic computing technologies that provide Self-Optimizing, Self-Configuring, and
Self-Healing characteristics go beyond simple hardware fault tolerance. Additionally, the
System z hardware environment provides:

Fault Detection
Automatic switching to backups where available
(Chipkill memory, ECC cache, CP, Service Processor, system bus, Multipath I/O, and soon)
Plug and Play and Hot swap I/O
Capacity Upgrade on Demand

4. Security

On March 14, 2003, IBM eServer™ zSeries 900 was the first server to be awarded EAL5
security certification. The System z architecture is designed to prevent the flow of information
among logical partitions on a system, thus helping to ensure that confidential or sensitive data
remains within the boundaries of a single partition.

On February 15, 2005, IBM and Novell® announced that SUSE® Linux Enterprise Server 9
successfully completed a Common Criteria (CC) evaluation to achieve a new level of security
certification (CAPP/EAL4+). IBM and Novell also achieved United States (US) Department of
Defense (DoD) Common Operating Environment (COE) compliance, which is a Defense
Information Systems Agency requirement for military computing products.

On March 2, 2006, z/OS V1.7 with the RACF® optional feature achieved EAL4+ for
Controlled Access Protection Profile (CAPP) and Labeled Security Protection Profile (LSPP).
This prestigious certification assures customers that z/OS V1.7 goes through an extensive
and rigorous testing process and conforms to standards that the International Standards
Organization sanctions.

These certification efforts highlight the IBM ongoing commitment to providing robust levels of
security to assist customers in protecting their business critical data.

5. Scalability

The Capacity Upgrade on Demand (CUoD) capability allows you to non-disruptively add one
or more Central Processors (CPs), Internal Coupling Facilities (ICFs), System z Application
Assist Processor (zAAP), and Integrated Facility for Linux (IFLs) to increase server resources
when they are needed, without incurring downtime. Capacity Upgrade on Demand can
quickly add processors up to the maximum number of available inactive engines. Also,
additional books (up to a maximum of four in total) can be installed concurrently, providing
additional processing units and memory capacity to a z9® or z10® server.

In addition, the new Enhanced Book Availability function also enables a memory upgrade to
an installed z9 or z10 book in a multi-book server. This feature provide customers with the
capacity for much needed dynamic growth in an unpredictable ATM/EFT world.
The CUoD functions include:

Non-disruptive CP, ICF, IFL, and zAAP upgrades
Dynamic upgrade of all I/O cards in the I/O Cage
Dynamic upgrade of memory

The Parallel Sysplex environment can scale near linearly from two to 32 systems. This
environment can be a mix of any servers that support the Parallel Sysplex environment.

6. Dynamic workload balancing

To end users and business applications, the entire Parallel Sysplex cluster can be seen as a
single logical resource. Just as work can be dynamically distributed across the individual
processors within a single SMP server, so too can work be directed to any node in a Parallel
Sysplex cluster that has the available capacity, which avoids the need to partition data or
applications among individual nodes in the cluster or to replicate databases across multiple
servers.

7. IBM Integrated Cryptographic Service Facility

In addition to the external security modules (HSMs) that are available on other platforms,
BASE24-eps on System z can take full advantage of the IBM Crypto Express 2 card using the
Integrated Cryptographic Service Facility (ICSF) for very high speed and highly available
cryptographic services, such as Personal Identification Number (PIN) translation and
verification and Message Authentication Code (MAC) generation and validation.

8. Integration with external authorization systems

On all platforms, BASE24-eps can use data communications to send requests and receive
responses from external transaction authorization systems. On System z only, other means
of communicating with external authorization systems are available, such as:

IBM WebSphere MQ CICS Gateway for communicating synchronously or asynchronously
with local CICS-based authorization systems. (Synchronous communications is
recommended only for suitably reliable and low-latency systems.)

The IBM External CICS Interface (EXCI) for communicating synchronously with suitably
reliable and low-latency local CICS authorization systems with the lowest possible CPU
cost.

The IBM IMSConnect for communicating with local IMS-based authorization systems.