The evaluation demonstrated that the Linux platform could handle a large bank’s mission-critical payment processing needs at a lower total cost of ownership (TCO), supporting the same high availability, scalability and high transaction throughput as current environments. It also highlighted the potential cost benefits associated with deploying the solution in a public cloud.

“This evaluation of ACI’s UP BASE24-eps on Linux in the cloud not only replicated current functionality, but also tested high transaction throughputs that were equivalent or higher than a typical large bank’s transaction volumes on average,” said Anil Das, managing partner, Payments Practice, Cognizant, which worked with ACI on the testing. “The results showed this cloud-based configuration could process the transaction volume comfortably and it was highly available.”

“The open systems environment of Linux provides financial institutions with a wide range of tools and resources,” said James Wester, research director, IDC Financial Insights. “Moreover, the low TCO advantage of Linux makes it a more efficient option for financial institutions, helping them to increase their margins, given the interchange fee regulation that caps revenue. Further, financial institutions have been slower to adopt cloud-based payments technology so being able to provide that option would certainly provide further cost savings.”

“As we move into an era of real-time and digital payments that drive up the number of transactions per second, this testing helps validate that Linux systems can support the mission-critical, high transaction needs of banks while delivering a compelling value proposition,” said Craig Saks, chief operating officer, ACI Worldwide. “Innovative banking institutions are increasingly interested in the control, flexibility and cost benefits of technologies like Linux–which could provide up to 90 percent lower total cost of ownership–whether running on premise or in a public cloud.”

UP BASE24-eps, part of ACI’s UP Retail Payments solution, acquires, authenticates, switches and authorizes financial transactions across multiple channels. Drawing on more than 40 years’ experience in payments software, the platform supports card, ATM and bank branch transactions through to mobile commerce and internet banking. It has been developed to address rapidly changing market needs, such as real-time payment schemes, by bridging current payments systems with ACI’s Universal Payments (UP) solutions. The system is often used to manage stand-in balances by banks, providing a single, real-time view of client balances across all channels and regardless of the availability of the bank’s host systems.