If you think about making a single direct deposit, it will probably look deceptively easy to make one. But with the increase in the volume the complexity of the process will increase exponentially.

Comprised of only a few employees, Data Processing Service had to work really hard and also long hours. A single mistake that would occasionally happen had strong consequences for the business.

The biggest challenge for the company was the growth. Data Processing Service had to say NO to many potential customers just because they could not handle the volume.

IT Environment

Obviously, Data Processing Service had utilized a number of IT solutions to help running the business.

Some parts of the existing software solutions were missing important features. Completely new solutions were required to cover new areas.

Security was also not the top priority for the developers who tried to simply make it all work together. Only limited backup was implemented at the time.

It was decided to rebuild existing IT infrastructure to facilitate complete automation of the core business functions.

Network Infrastructure

A completely new wired 1GB network was designed and installed. The network replaced existing wireless solution. Cisco router was installed and configured to protect internal LAN and to allow company's employees to access office network remotely through Cisco VPN.

Servers

A brand new eight-core Dell server was installed and configured. A virtualized Red Hat Enterprise Linux provided multiple virtual servers needed to run part of the new business automation software.

ACH Files Processor Software

A new processing application called ACH File Processor was developed and implemented. The software would use MySQL RDBMS to store and perform some processing of the business data. The ACH File Processor software would run on one of the virtual servers.

The ACH File Processor would perform some rather complex validation of ACH format and customer data and would perform complete processing of the ACH files uploaded by customers. The system would also send a confirmation or an exception email to the customer and to the customer service personnel.

As the result of the processing the system would create a single output ACH file that would contain all scheduled transactions for a specific day segment.

For example, for a two segment configuration two output files would be created at the end of each segment—one at the end of the morning segment, the other one at the end of the evening segment.

Configuration with multiple banks having multiple segments was also supported.

Multiple output files created during a business day would be used to split daily volume. The generated output files would be used by Data Processing Service to make actual debit and credit payments.

Web Hosting Service

A reputable web hosting company was selected to host new customer web portal and a new website. The whole virtual server was leased from the vendor.

The hosted virtual server was purposely selected based on the fact that it was located in a physically different location (another state), in a secured data center having multiple redundand physical servers, redundand power systems, and multiple high speed connections to the Internet Back Haul providers. And it was running CentOS Linux.

Customer Web Portal

New CUSTOMER WEB PORTAL was developed and implemented. The portal would allow customers to upload files, preview them before submitting, submit the files, and see real time files processing status.

The portal would also allow customer to run billing usage reports that would automatically calculate all fees based on one of the pricing models, uploaded files, processed transactions, and other factors.

Cryptographic System

To connect the outside hosted CUSTOMER WEB PORTAL with the main ACH FILE PROCESSOR located at the Data Processing Service headquarters a completely new cryptographic system was developed.

The system would provide a secured communication channel to transmit files, status, and configuration data.

Hot Backup System

To complete the whole solution, a HOT BACKUP ACH File Processor was deployed to run on the same virtual server as the CUSTOMER WEB PORTAL. The backup system would process a second copy of the same ACH Files uploaded by customers; this would happen in parallel to the main system.

If anything would happen to the main system, there would always be a redundand second copy of all processed input and output ACH files.

In a similar fashion, a complete copy of CUSTOMER WEB PORTAL was deployed to one of the virtual servers located at the company headquarters. If the main customer portal would ever go down, the customers would be able to access the backup one and would still be able to process their files.

There have been definitely quite a few positive results. What was even more interesting, the fast growing company also faced new good challenges.

First of all, the company doubled its customer base while increasing their total revenue more than 300% during the first six months since go live in September 2008.

Second, only small increase in staff was required.

Third, error rate went to almost zero. Of course, there have been one larger issue and a few minor ones during the first months of production run but they have been successfully resolved with no financial or customer losses. In general, excellent team work of everyone involved allowed the system to exceed any expectations all sides had before the project.

Fourth, new solution allowed for high systems availability and data protection. The company lived through a major software crash of the main processing server. The crash was of an unusual nature—it happened during a planned software update that went wrong because of the major bug in the update software of a very reputable vendor. The vendor was changed but the server was out of service for two complete days.

Regardless of the major server crash the business continued to run normal. All files were continued to be processed—only by a hot backup system. No data was lost.

The best part of this story was that most of the customers never knew and did not even noticed the event that could have been disastrous.

When the main server was finally restored, it was synchronized with the backup system and things went back to normal.

Reliability wise all the system components run 24/7—including servers, network equipment with VPN access, and all custom software applications. While regular IT maintenance is performed, the nature of it stays more proactive than reactive. Software applications run for many months before they are stopped for next version upgrades.

The only interesting challenge that the project brought was the fact that due to the sharp increase in total processing volume the bank that Data Processing Service was working with almost hit its daily cash flow limits. The company had been with the same bank for many years.

The company had to involve additional banks to relieve the load from the main one.

The most fun part is that the potential is still there. While the initial revenue increase does look impressive the company is very far from reaching its potential processing capacity.

As it turns out to be, it it much more difficult to build an external infrastructure than the internal one. But hey, that is the beauty of the growth, isn't it?