Leading European Provider of Payment Services, Voca, Selects InfoVista to Optimize Performance of its IP-based Payments System
VistaInsight® for Networks Chosen to Deliver Advanced Network Monitoring and Capacity Planning Capabilities
Paris, France and Herndon, VA (United States), October 17, 2006 – InfoVista (NASDAQ: IVTA; Euronext IFV - FR0004031649), the leading service-centric performance management software company, announced today that Voca, a leading provider of payment services and the largest processor of direct debits and credit transfers in Europe, has deployed InfoVista’s VistaInsight for Networks. InfoVista’s performance management solution will provide Voca with enhanced visibility into network performance for capacity planning, performance monitoring, and network troubleshooting on its IP network.
To cope with the rapid expansion of its business and growing demand for services, Voca has recently completed a comprehensive overhaul of its technology infrastructure moving all 100,000 of its corporate users onto a new web based network spanning three sites; two production centres and one head office. The network has been designed to support the new Voca Payment Engine, the most advanced payments system in Europe which has been built by Voca to help manage the growth in automated payments.
Steve Dunton, infrastructure architect at Voca, said: “What really set InfoVista apart from the other vendors we considered was its ease of use, superior scalability and unparalleled levels of functionality. Also, we wanted to avoid supporting custom applications so InfoVista’s ability to work out of the box was key in our selection. Once the InfoVista solution had been installed, the benefits were immediate.”
InfoVista's web based solution is capable of generating real-time and historical performance data providing a detailed insight into the performance of the network. The solution will initially be used to notify Voca’s network support teams of any performance issues, enabling them to make intelligent decisions about resource allocation, capacity planning and problem resolution in real time. This improved service assurance, and provisioning capability is of critical importance because of the key role it plays in ensuring there is no loss or degradation of service across the network.
The InfoVista solution was selected by Voca following an in-depth evaluation of performance management vendors and a week long pilot in its test and development network environment with the leading two vendors in the market.
In the next three months, Voca is planning to extend the use of InfoVista’s solution to the enterprise service stack, to set thresholds and identify threshold errors on service performance. The company’s future plans also include integrating InfoVista with Voca’s business enterprise server so the data can be used for service modelling to illustrate the potential outcomes of various scenarios on the network.
“Voca’s technology is at the heart of the UK’s automated payments system, processing the country’s salaries, household bills and state benefits. In such a mission critical environment it is essential that Voca’s network is able to provide the highest level of performance and service assurance,” said Julien Dahan, SVP EMEA sales, InfoVista. “Voca’s decision to select InfoVista speaks volumes about the importance of performance management in achieving consistent and predictable levels of service and is testament to the quality and high performance of our solution.”
About Voca
Voca is the provider of payments services to banks and corporates. Responsible for the technology behind the UK’s automated payments, Voca has processed 60 billion transactions in the last 38 years and in the summer of 2006 completed an innovative and flexible IT programme in order to meet the rapidly growing demand for its services.
Voca provides technology and services that form the core infrastructure handling more than 90% of UK salaries, 70% of household bills and the majority of state benefits and pension payments. Voca is recognised as the largest processor of direct debits and credit transfers in Europe. During 2005 more than 5 billion financial transactions were securely processed, this accounts for 15% of all European bank-to-bank payments. Voca processed a peak of 80 million transactions on a single day in September 2006. More than 100,000 businesses connect to the Voca network, including all of the FTSE 100. 2005 saw all of them transfer to a highly advanced IP-based submission channel, BACSTEL-IP.
Voca is working with LINK to supply the central infrastructure for the faster payments service which will be launched in the UK at the end of 2007. Additionally, Voca is committed to and is actively supporting the introduction of a SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) and its payment solutions are already well developed to meet the demands of this pan-European programme. Please visit www.voca.com for more information.
About InfoVista
InfoVista is the Service-Centric Performance Management Software Company that assures the optimal delivery of business-critical IT services. Driven by a uniquely adaptive and real-time technology foundation, InfoVista solutions improve business effectiveness, reduce operating risk, lower cost of operations, increase agility and create competitive advantage. Eighty per cent of the world's largest service providers as ranked by Fortune®, as well as leading Global 2000 enterprises, rely on InfoVista to enhance the business value of their technology assets. Representative customers include ABN AMRO, Allstream, Banques Populaires, AXA, Banque de France, Bell Canada, British Telecom, Broadwing Communications, Cable & Wireless, Com Hem, Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), Deutsche Telecom, France Telecom, Savvis Corporation, SingTel, Telefonica, and US Cellular. A Software Magazine 500 company, InfoVista stock is traded on the NASDAQ (IVTA) and on Eurolist by Euronext (FR0004031649). For more information about the company, please visit www.infovista.com.