Creating a Zero Latency Environment for Instantaneous Customer Information

May 15, 2003

Article URL: http://www.dw-institute.com/research/display.asp?id=6653

The Challenge: Synchronizing Data across Heterogeneous Systems
Paymentech is the premier electronic payment solutions provider for both merchant acquisition and point-of-sale transaction processing. Founded in 1985 and headquartered in Dallas, Paymentech processes 3.7 billion transactions annually, or nearly 11 percent of all transactions that involve bankcards — credit cards and debit cards that are associated with specific banks.

Paymentech's Re$ource Online suite of Web-based applications and services enables its merchant customers to access up-to-the-minute payment transaction data to perform reporting, trend analyses, and other procedures. Through these online reporting services merchants can retrieve whatever processing records they need, view them, print them, or export them into spreadsheet formats.

To power its transaction processing, Paymentech uses HP NonStop™ S-Series servers, an Enscribe database and a proprietary application. The company also has a data warehouse built on several HP/Unix boxes and an Oracle database. This system constantly feeds data to Paymentech's internal reporting applications and also feeds several of the Re$ource Online applications. The challenge for Paymentech in providing an instant reporting capability through Re$ource Online was that it had to capture data on its primary transaction system (Enscribe) and then transform and load that data to its data warehouse (Oracle) supporting the Web-based customer-facing services.

The Solution: Global Data Synchronization from GoldenGate
To achieve this near-real-time synchronization, Paymentech turned to GoldenGate. Using unobtrusive log-based change data capture technology, the GoldenGate Global Data Synchronization solution enables Paymentech to capture, transform, and deliver massive volumes of data in sub-second times across its heterogeneous systems environment. By incrementally replicating database changes as they occur, the GoldenGate platform eliminates the need to reload entire databases and minimizes impact on host systems.

"GoldenGate is the essential link powering our reporting applications — it allows us to instantly capture data from our NonStop transaction system and deliver it wherever it's needed," said Barry Mera, Group Manager of Technical Services at Paymentech. "GoldenGate's ability to move data instantly between heterogeneous systems has enabled us to create a zero latency environment where sophisticated applications provide our customers with immediate access to their transaction information."

One of the offerings included in the Re$ource Online suite is FlexCache, a stored value program that enables merchants to issue pre-paid cards and electronic gift certificates to customers quickly and easily. FlexCache combines card creation, transaction processing, database management, and online reporting in a single package. "We have an Oracle 8i database on HP Unix dedicated to stored value cards," said Jason Crosson, Paymentech Technical Support Analyst. "We use GoldenGate to capture data from the NonStop system and synchronize it to the stored value database where our merchants can use FlexCache Report$ to monitor activity through daily, weekly, and monthly online reports." Simply by logging on to the Paymentech Web site, clients can use FlexCache Report$ to access transaction details and summary information covering a range of subjects, including active card balances, activity recap, transaction detail, transaction overview, cardholder lookup, and merchant lookup.

To achieve business continuity, Paymentech employs a dual-site configuration. With processors located in New Hampshire and Florida, Paymentech uses GoldenGate to continuously capture and deliver data to and from both sites' online databases, keeping them synchronized to within three seconds. "We considered other data synchronization options, but GoldenGate's low overhead, low bandwidth requirements, and ability to handle both Tandem and Unix/Oracle operations made it the best choice," said Crosson.

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