Centric iSolutions banks on Oninit and IBM Informix for CLiP iMessageHUB

Centric iSolutions is an IT application product development company based in the US and UK. The company focuses on iCommerce solutions, and has special experience in the international banking industry.

The European division of one of the world’s largest international banks approached Centric iSolutions to find a solution to a major business issue. The bank was using the SWIFT messaging network to communicate securely with other banks and financial institutions. It sent and received thousands of SWIFT messages every day – often regarding vital, time-sensitive transactions. If transactions were not completed on time, the financial penalties could be considerable – so the reliability of its SWIFT messaging platform was a business-critical issue.

A complex infrastructure

Due to the way the bank’s IT landscape had evolved, there were a number of systems in different departments across Europe that needed to communicate externally via the SWIFT network. Each department kept its own records of messages sent and received – in many cases, printing copies of the messages and storing them in a manual filing system. As a result, it was difficult and time-consuming to trace individual messages, which led to significant challenges in terms of regulatory compliance.

Centric iSolutions advised the bank to simplify matters by consolidating its messaging infrastructure across Europe, and developed a solution called CLiP iMessageHUB to serve as a central point of control for all SWIFT messages. Every time one of the bank’s systems sends or receives a SWIFT message, CLiP iMessageHUB captures and transforms the SWIFT EDI message format into data, and stores it in a central data repository.

In the bank’s existing environment, adding functionality to SWIFT message management required changes to multiple operational solutions. Now, by centralizing SWIFT message management into a single application-based environment, the bank is in a better position to add functionalities such as “black list” sanctioning, message conversion, message matching and netting.

Building on IBM Informix technology

CLiP iMessageHUB is a database-driven application, so choosing the right database platform was a key issue for Centric iSolutions during the product’s development. Robert Dant, founder of Centric iSolutions, was confident that IBM technology would provide the solution:

“At Centric, we have a long history of working with different database platforms, and in our opinion IBM Informix Dynamic Server is the best of the bunch – especially when it comes to reliability, performance and security.”

Oninit, an IBM Business Partner, provided the licences for the IBM Informix Dynamic Server database technology and supplied the hardware, which delivers the performance required to process very high volumes of daily messaging traffic. Running the software under Linux on Intel processor-based IBM System x hardware helps to ensure low infrastructure costs – and excellent price-performance.

Robert Dant comments: “Many companies are afraid of Informix – they just see it as yet another database platform that they will need to maintain and support. In our view, they couldn’t be more wrong. Unlike most enterprise databases, Informix Dynamic Server is so reliable that it can run more or less unattended – there’s no need for a team of database administrators to optimise and tune it all the time. This resilience, combined with its ability to deliver high levels of performance even on low-end hardware, means that Informix can be a very cost-effective platform too.”

High Availability Data Replication

Informix Dynamic Server is one of very few databases to offer native High Availability Data Replication (HDR) features as standard – maintaining a fault-tolerant replica of data from one instance of the database on a secondary server. As a result, the CLiP iMessageHUB solution is able to remain up and running without interruption, even if one of the physical servers suffers an outage or needs to be taken offline for maintenance.

“If CLiP iMessageHUB goes offline and messages are not sent at the right time, the financial repercussions can be very serious indeed,” explains Robert Dant. “Downtime is absolutely unacceptable. The solution is so mission-critical for our client that we simply could not risk building it on any database other than Informix.”

Expert support services

As a further layer of resilience, Centric and the bank are working with Oninit, an IBM Business Partner and Informix specialist, to provide 24x7 monitoring and support for the CLiP iMessageHUB database. Oninit works to rigorous service level agreements and provides the bank’s branches with detailed reports that demonstrate the benefits of its proactive support programme.

“The relationship with Oninit demonstrates the benefits of working with a real expert in Informix managed services,” says Robert Dant. “Service levels are measured against agreed targets, so the bank can see how well Oninit is responding. Oninit’s reaction times and the overall availability of the environment have been excellent since day one. The Oninit service includes monthly performance reporting directly to the customer.”

London leads the way

In addition to the standard CLiP iMessageHUB solution that has been deployed across Europe, the bank’s London office has engaged with Centric iSolutions to build a number of applications that add extra functionality.

First, an advanced search function helps staff to find SWIFT messages sent or received by any system in the London office’s infrastructure. If one of the bank’s messages is queried by its recipient, the bank may quickly find its own record and deal with any problems. Equally, this feature has obvious benefits for auditing, compliance and efficiency.

Second, the system has a validation engine that checks for duplicate or incomplete outgoing messages before they are forwarded to the SWIFT network. This significantly reduces the risk of important transactions not being completed on time: invalid SWIFT messages are immediately flagged for attention and can be quickly corrected.

Third, the system automatically notifies the relevant employees whenever a new SWIFT message is received. This helps ensure that all messages are handled rapidly and effectively, and makes it easier for the bank to meet important deadlines.

Since all the messages are now held online in the Informix repository, there is no longer a need to print and store paper copies. However, there are still occasions when a paper copy is useful, so Centric iSolutions has also introduced a print-on-demand feature to meet these needs.

Conclusion

The bank’s entire European operation is already seeing the benefits of CLiP iMessageHUB and IBM Informix Dynamic Server, as the solution manages the sending and receipt of messages for all branches. The innovations introduced by the London office may well be rolled out to other countries in the near future.

David Rayner, Chairman and CEO of Centric iSolutions, adds: “Our CLiP iMessageHUB solution had no impact on the Bank’s numerous legacy systems, and did not require any changes to be made to them. Going forward, Centric iSolutions is looking to provide additional functionality in the next release of CLiP iMessageHUB, which will include in-line SWIFT message sanctioning, message matching for real-time reconciliation, message conversion, and message alerts.”

Robert Dant concludes: “Thanks to IBM and Oninit, we have been able to deliver a SWIFT messaging solution that provides the stability and performance that our client needs. Centric iSolutions prides itself on fostering innovation in its solutions without compromising on the reliability that our clients in the banking sector demand. For this reason, Informix Dynamic Server is our database of choice.”