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SaaS Architecture for Extreme Agility and Scalability
Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) is deploying a SOA-based SaaS (software as a service) application for near-real-time risk profiling that will help lower bank account risk and prevent the opening of fraudulent accounts.
To be effective, however, this application had to be able to meet high performance SLAs, ensure reliable operations with zero downtime, flexibly execute—on the fly—risk profiling transactions customized to individual bank branches and products, and to protect customer privacy. FIS chose Progress® Sonic ESB® for its scalability and agile service orchestration and Progress® Actional web services and SOA management software for its end-to-end visibility into SOA operations, real-time performance monitoring and alerting, and consistent SOA security enforcement.
Hear the full story from Ron A. Whyte, VP Risk Technology at FIS, and Progress CTO Hub Vandervoort and learn about how the right technology and configuration can deliver "extreme" transaction processing.
Please register for immediate access to this on-demand webcast.
Abstract: SaaS Architecture for Extreme Agility and Scalability
As software as a service (SaaS) and service-oriented architecture (SOA) evolve, they are converging—resulting in an SaaS architecture built on SOA infrastructure and Web services. This convergence results in a common SOA scenario to provide the SaaS product or service: transaction-processing involving the integration of remotely accessed, distributed, and heterogeneous back-end systems.
As a result, to succeed these SaaS solutions must address such IT issues as performance, availability, and security—which are intensified by the need to deliver agreed-upon service-levels to customers. One "extreme" example of these challenges is a new SaaS offering from Fidelity National Information Services (FIS), the world's largest provider of software to the banking industry.
FIS and the Challenges of a SOA-based SaaS Architecture
The FIS Banking and Analytic Solutions Division planned to offer near-real-time risk scoring to retail banking applications via Web services. The goal was to help banks avoid opening accounts for the purpose of writing bad checks and mitigate losses from other risky customers by putting restrictions in place when accounts were opened.
The risk scoring process involved checking applicant information against up to 20 data sources—some internal, some from third parties—such as the databases of the major credit bureaus, the US Postal Service address list, and "derogatory" databases (e.g., the Early Warning database of closed fraudulent accounts).
The risk scoring service would be offered as an SaaS subscription. Each bank could choose which data sources to use in its scoring. Risk profiles could be tailored to individual bank branches and specific products. In other words, the system needed to be able to dynamically customize each risk transaction process.
The solution required extreme scalability and agility. FIS would need to provide scores during the account opening process—meeting service-level agreements (SLAs) for, typically, 10-second response times and 24x7x365 availability. So the company had to be able to monitor and troubleshoot the diverse processes to guarantee performance.
FIS adopted an SOA based on an enterprise service bus (ESB). The company chose Progress® Sonic ESB® as its communication and integration backbone for its scalability and flexible service reuse and Progress® Actional® Web services and SOA management solutions for end-to-end SOA monitoring and SOA security.
Progress Sonic ESB: A Flexible, Reliable Backbone for SaaS Architecture
With Sonic ESB, the workload can be distributed to achieve both fast response times and scalable throughput (e.g., 650 concurrent requests per second)—for extreme transaction processing. Brokers can be clustered—with load balancing across the cluster for high-throughput, low-latency, and reliability.
Sonic ESB intelligent routing of services via itineraries enabled FIS to define the basic process common to all customers and then create the customized variations required for different banks and branches. Sonic can then deploy any itinerary dynamically, on the fly, in response to the particular transaction.
Progress Actional: End-to-end Monitoring and Security for the SaaS Architecture
To ensure reliable operations and support SLAs, FIS deployed Progress Actional for end- monitoring across Sonic ESB and connected systems. Via automatically generated, end-to-end flow maps, Actional enabled FIS to monitor processes, set up alerts, and when alerts occurred, drill down to a flow map of the violating transaction for root cause analysis and fast remediation. It also provided statistics on performance and availability for each system in the process.
FIS also uses Actional's active policy enforcement capability to help ensure the security of sensitive customer information, such as Social Security numbers, and comply with the PCI security standard.
For More Information on Progress Solutions for SaaS Architecture
Find out more about the SaaS architecture and the Sonic and Actional configuration that enables FIS to perform extreme transaction processing. Register here for the Webinar "SaaS Architecture for Extreme Agility and Scalability."
