November 01, 2007
Background of the project:
With the gradual opening of financial markets, the competition among commercial banks for customers has intensified day by day. In order to satisfy the needs of a wide range of customers, banks continue to launch new businesses and adopt new trading technology and means, which have provided customers with multiple e-financial services. The large-scale use of self-service equipments and full use of the Internet Bank to provide a non-stop, cross-boundary service have become an effective way for banks to lower operation costs, improve service efficiency and quality, and enhance market competitiveness.
Customer requirements:
At present, for the self-service equipments of China Post, such as ATM and POS, their system is built in their own province, and the pre-system of Union Pay card used in provinces’ cross-linking is built in its own province too, so they both have many versions. In order to solve the problems including the high maintenance costs due to non-uniform version, the difficulties in transformation, and the slow launch of new business; and fully consider the long-term plan of post financial business, the National Post Office has decided to architect the unified version of post financial ATM/POS/pre-systems of Union Pay.
This project is convenient for self-service equipments such as ATM to access and favorable to layout them rapidly, as well as favorable to improve the window image, improve the service quality, and increase the network's capacity to absorb savings; this project is convenient for self-service equipments such as ATM to be monitored and managed, as well as effective in controlling the operation quality of ATM; this project is also convenient for ATM, POS and pre-systems of Union Pay to be reformed so as to meet the needs of business development.
About technology
The pre-system of ATM is loose and has a poor concentration of management. The structure of modules were implemented in their own province respectively, there are many problems, therefore, such as the high transformation costs, the complex coordination, the difficult sync-control; and the difficulties in new business development.
The existing SCO UNIX systems and PC SERVER hosts are old. Most of them have been beyond the warranty period and no longer meet the current demand for new IT technology. The pressure of maintaining these old ones is getting larger and larger, and at the same time their adaptation is getting worse and worse.
About business
Bank Card business occupies a very important position in the retail banking business, so the non-uniform version is not conducive to the unity of the interface and the expansion of their business; unified software could unify the interface of Foreign Service as far as possible, create brand image, improve the environment for card use, and facilitate the business development.
About management
It is difficult for non-uniform version to be managed; through the unified deployment of real-time monitoring systems, the management of equipment can be strengthened and its efficiency can be played to the top; a unified system of statistical analysis will be good for management.
Solutions and deployment:
The pre-system of ATM/POS includes three sub-systems: integrated pre-system, pre-system of Union Pay, and monitoring management system. In order to establish the operating environment fast and regularly, make the system have higher availability, manageability, and maintainability, as well as improve the system performance effectively, ensure the system’s high efficiency, and avoid single point of failure. The project team of integrated pre-system of China Post regulates, by the demand of actual transaction volume, the software and hardware configuration for every city in order to ensure the quality of operating environment.
The deployment chart of software and hardware:
Application deployment
For example, three of the application servers and one F5 load balancing device are connected, and ATM/POS/pre-system of Union Pay are all installed and started on them, then the three servers become a cluster system through the F5 load balancing device.
On another application server, only the monitoring system and some necessary software need to be installed, such as the oracle database, weblogic, and so on. Considering the volume of data exchange is very large between monitoring server and database server, Gigabit LAN is recommended by the Red Flag Company. At the same time, considering the amount of data preservation is also large for monitoring server, it must take a great deal of storage space, if the monitoring server is not directly connected to the magnetic fiber-optic array, it should be equipped with as many as local hard disks.
Both the integrated pre-system and the monitoring system use the name of network service to connect database, this can perform the switch when there is a failure on RAC, and realize the seamless switch to another example when one breaks down.
HA deployment
Three servers of ATM/POS/pre-system of Union Pay are made into a cluster system through a F5 load balancing device. Based on the load of each server, F5 load balancing device will automatically distribute the request packet, which is sent by the client, in order to ensure a minimum response time and a maximum performance achievement. If any one machine could not provide service, F5 load balancing device will automatically cease to send the request to the server until it goes well again, this will avoid the server's single point of failure to the maximum.
Hence, it is enough for the three servers to install operating system, oracle client and integrated pre-system, without having to install HA software, without having to shut down and restart application software among them.
Database deployment
Oracle will be deployed on two servers, and they will be made into RAC in order to ensure continuous accessibility. In view of the system which has an enormous amount of data transactions, the memory of not less than
Because the essence of RAC is that two examples access a database at the same time, as long as the parameter “failover-on” is configured in the client’s name of network service, oracle will automatically switch to the other example when one breaks down, this will ensure the availability of database and the fast switching, which can be said a seamless switch basically.
Storage deployment
Two fiber-optic switches and one magnetic fiber-optic array are used, moreover, the two database servers, which are both equipped with two fiber-optic cards, were connected to the two fiber-optic switches with two fiber-optic lines respectively. Magnetic fiber-optic array, whose every controller has two fiber-optic ports, is connected to the two fiber-optic switches through the two ports by a total of four fiber-optic lines. This will avoid the single point of failure coming from fiber-optic cards, fiber-optic switches or fiber-optic ports, and ensure the non-stop access for database to storage.
It is recommended to be RAID0+1 for the hard disk on magnetic fiber-optic array because this will take both the disk performance and the data protection into account, it is still worthy despite the reduction of storage space.
With tape library or tape drive has been suggested because the backup document of database will be transferred to the tape in a timely manner, this can be helpful for saving disk space and enhancing disaster prevention.
Cost-benefit
The open-source Linux can satisfy the technical needs of in-depth development for users. Red Flag Linux, with excellent localization advantage, has supported the entire development process for users and provided them with thoughtful after-sale service. The leading open-source software has brought enormous IT investment returns to customers.
Versions/models of software and hardware products:
In the deployment and implementation of this system, the Red Flag Company has provided software and hardware products as follows and set up a highly efficient, stable and secure platform:
Software platform: RedFlag DC Server 5.0 X86-64, RedFlag HA Cluster 5.0 X86-64
Hardware platform: IBM X3650, IBM X3850, IBM DS4700 disk cabinet
Middleware/database and other third-party products: ORACLE 9i x86-64, Tuxedo 8.1 x86-64, ATM/POS pre-system of service
Effects evaluations:
The key server with Intel® Xeon™ processor can achieve the excellent processing ability, while the products based on Intel® architecture have open standards and high scalability, which are helpful for building a system that can meet the needs of future development to the greatest extent, and also helpful for protecting the user’s investment to the maximum.
It is believed that Linux technology, with its growing maturity and large-scale use, will bring greater convenience to the system of China Post in high-performance, high reliability and flexibility.
A powerful information system will support and protect, for the growing China Post, the continuous improvement and optimization of business.
Red Flag Software Co. Ltd.
Telephone: 8610-82656655
Fax: 8610-82658096
Website: http://www.redflag-linux.com
Address: 6/F, Zijin Bldg,
Postal code: 100086
The final interpretation right of this document belongs to the Red Flag Software Co. Ltd.