HP Powers PULSE to Expand Transaction Processing Capacity

HP Powers PULSE to Expand Transaction Processing Capacity

Leading debit network chooses HP Converged Infrastructure to enhance business agility

PALO ALTO, Calif., July 10, 2012

HP today announced that PULSE, a Discover Financial Services company, has selected an HP Converged Infrastructure to meet growing consumer debit card use while delivering efficient transaction processing services to clients.

As one of the fastest-growing debit/ATM networks in the United States, PULSE processes millions of transactions daily for thousands of financial institutions across the country.

PULSE worked with HP Technology Services to evaluate its business needs and develop a technology strategy that delivered a scalable infrastructure capable of supporting nearly five times more transaction processing than its previous platform.(1) In addition to maintaining the highest levels of performance, the company leveraged HP NonStop technology to eliminate unplanned downtime, enhancing client satisfaction, while reducing processing costs.

After a thorough review of available solutions, PULSE selected an HP Converged Infrastructure consisting of three mission-critical HP Integrity NonStop NB50000c BladeSystem infrastructure platforms. The solution offers a combination of servers, networking and storage that easily scales and eliminates unplanned downtime. Each PULSE data center location includes dedicated systems for production transaction processing, certification, and development and benchmarking.

The HP NB50000c BladeSystem ensures continuous availability while using only half the footprint of PULSE’s previous platform. HP’s multicore processing capabilities provide increased flexibility at 25 percent of the previous processing cost. Additionally, the average transaction processing time was reduced by 75 percent, and the total cost of ownership was lowered by approximately one-third.(1)

“For PULSE to leverage new opportunities and meet changing industry demands, we needed to scale out our transaction processing platform while maintaining high availability and performance,” said Tony Zeis, senior vice president, Technology, PULSE. “As an HP client for more than 17 years, we knew that the HP Converged Infrastructure would fit our needs perfectly, while reducing our transaction processing time and costs.”

“Financial institutions, like ours, depend on their networks to deliver uninterrupted 24/7 service,” said Nick Anderson, senior vice president, Trustmark Bank, a participating PULSE issuer in Jackson, Miss. “PULSE’s migration to the new HP NonStop architecture strengthens their ability to provide reliable services and 100 percent uptime—this helps us sleep better at night.”

PULSE relies on ongoing support from the HP Technology Services Consulting group, HP Account Support Management (ASM) and HP Mission Critical Services to maintain peak infrastructure performance. Since the migration, services from HP have enabled PULSE to maintain 100 percent availability with ongoing system support from dedicated account representatives, leveraging a customized services plan that evolves as needed.

PULSE expands plans for mission-critical HP Converged Infrastructure

PULSE selected the mission-critical HP Converged Infrastructure, including HP NonStop systems to support its DebitProtect® fraud detection system.

PULSE is deploying ReD’s real-time transaction monitoring and risk management software solution, ReD PRISM®, implemented on HP Integrity NonStop BladeSystem NB54000c and HP Integrity NonStop NS2200 servers for the DebitProtect application. The combined solution will deliver the scalability and performance necessary to protect financial institutions’ cardholder transactions at the ATM and point of sale from the threat of fraud.

HP’s premier Europe, Middle East and Africa client event, HP Discover, takes place Dec. 4-6 in Frankfurt, Germany.

About HP

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