HP and First Data unveil configured solutions

HP and First Data Corporation, a global leader in electronic commerce and payment processing, have announced that HP Converged Infrastructure will be the foundation for First Data’s VisionPLUS® Flex solution, which enables financial institutions to cost-effectively process payment portfolios of up to 10 million accounts.

VisionPLUS Flex enables financial institutions to issue and process credit, debit, commercial and prepaid cards, as well as to address closed-end loan account processing on a single platform. Through this collaboration, First Data is now delivering VisionPLUS Flex in an appliance delivery model. With VisionPLUS Flex appliances, financial institutions can also lower the total cost of ownership, offer the ability to process payments in country and transform organizations’ existing IT platforms to support growing enterprise demands.

Part of the VisionPLUS product line, the VisionPLUS Flex software integrates First Data-certified solutions to deliver an appliance that can be installed in days rather than months, accelerating a customer’s path to revenue. HP Converged Infrastructure incorporates leading open standards-based technologies that deliver modern architectures optimally integrated across servers, storage, networking, security, power and cooling, leveraging a common management platform.

“Financial institutions need payment solutions they can easily integrate into existing banking systems in order to launch innovative payment products that meet client demands,” said John Elkins, president, International Regions, First Data. “With HP technology, VisionPLUS Flex delivers a scalable, easily configurable solution that lowers the total cost of ownership.”

VisionPLUS Flex, along with HP Converged Infrastructure, is an easily installed system running on HP ProLiant servers that is architected to meet the critical performance needs of the payment processing industry, which benefited from beta testing participation by First Data clients, and includes:
· HP BladeSystem—for breakthrough economics and advanced insight into the data center by consolidating server, storage, networking and power management into an easily managed unified environment.
· HP 3PAR StorServ 7000—to simplify storage management with effortless, self-configuring provisioning and optimization.
· HP 5800 Switch Series—for improved resiliency and performance to ensure business continuity and enhance disaster recovery, while simplifying management with the HP Intelligent Resilient Framework (IRF)—to allow up to nine locally or geographically distributed interconnected switches to be managed as a single entity.
· HP Virtual Connect Technology—for up to 50 percent savings compared to traditional Ethernet switches, as well as simplified management and flexible bandwidth allocation.
· HP Systems Insight Manager (SIM)—to maximize system uptime and server health.
· HP Data Protector Software—to reduce network traffic and enhance storage capacity with improved backup efficiency through HP StoreOnce, HP’s patented data reduction technology.
· HP Proactive Care Service—to avoid potential problems and prevent unplanned downtime with access to advanced technical expertise and end-to-end call ownership, including proactive reports containing data analysis and recommendations.
· HP Installation and Deployment Services—factory preconfiguration option for smooth, efficient infrastructure integration into existing environments.

“As consumer and market demands evolve and grow, financial institutions and government agencies need to quickly and seamlessly issue, as well as process, a variety of payment processing tasks with a common management platform,” said Duncan Campbell, vice president, Worldwide Marketing, Converged Infrastructure, Enterprise Group, HP. “Together with First Data, HP is uniquely qualified to offer customers a complete solution via a single platform that accelerates the launching of a new payment solution worldwide.”