I have always been afraid of the dark. There is something terrifying about not being able to see what might be there. I am also afraid of Zombies, but I’ll save that for another blog.
When we can’t see, it leaves our imaginations wide open to all of the possibilities of what could be out there. In business, it could be irate customers, moaning about issues that should have been identified and resolved years ago. It could be IT teams screaming about their inability to link problems to failing infrastructure, application and network components. Or it could be the sound of thunder in the Cloud, as applications you have limited visibility into weather the storm of transaction traffic and capacity issues.
Monitoring switch compatibility with legacy systems, third party service providers and business critical applications living in the Cloud often leaves many of us feeling scared of the dark, too.
Security compliance and the growing consumer demand for more service and payment options means IT Operations teams are responsible for a greater number of third party applications and stand-alone software modules being layered over the traditional payments transaction switch more than ever before. Modern switches are host to an explosion of message-based services ranging from ATM and POS, to value added services such as mobile top-up and online payments, to security encryption, to the scary EMV. Many also use modular architectures that wire together distributed components such as HSMs, preferences servers, or databases to execute a single transaction.
So IT operations teams beware – these new complexities can make you the victim of creeping performance issues. When you least expect it…BOO!
If you think your transaction switch or critical business applications are being haunted by unexplainable performance issues, you are not alone. Let us share some really spooky stories with you during our upcoming webinar on Thursday, November 8th titled, “Excuse Me, Your Transaction Switch Is About to Explode.”