Real-Time Fraud Detection and Resolution for Financial Switch

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Figure 1 – Shadowbase Disaster Recovery (DR) Architecture

Situation

One of the largest U.S. processors of credit card transactions provides transaction authorization and settlement services for thousands of attached devices using a home-grown application on a pair of HPE NonStop systems.

The processor recently upgraded its servers and implemented an HPE Shadowbase Disaster Recovery architecture (Figure 1).

Problem

The processor wanted to add additional servers and distribute them around the U.S. for disaster tolerance while efficiently utilizing these servers’ capacity.
Additionally, fraudulent transaction activity was increasing and costing the processor a great deal of money.
The processor needed to integrate real-time fraud detection into its transaction authorization services to identify suspicious activity.
Directly modifying the authorization application processing would involve extensive and complex changes and require a lengthy testing cycle.

Solution

Use HPE Shadowbase bi-directional data replication for business continuity to synchronize application databases in a “route anywhere” model (any user/transaction can be serviced by any system, Step 1).
Use HPE Shadowbase Data and Application Integration to bi-directionally integrate the authorization activity in real-time with an off-platform fraud detection solution from Fair Isaac (Step 2).

Step 1: HPE Shadowbase Continuous Availability

Step 2: Real-Time Fraud Detection and Resolution

Additional Notes About this Architecture

Since the databases are kept synchronized via asynchronous replication, data collisions can occur. As a request is received, it is applied and the application updates the record’s “update-timestamp” field, and then the change is asynchronously replicated to the other node so that all copies of the database are kept up-to-date.

When data collisions occur (due to the nature of asynchronous replication), they are automatically resolved by a predetermined algorithm, which looks at a request’s record contents and applies the request with the most recent update timestamp (the other change loses and is logged to a reject log for record).

Note: HPE Shadowbase software supports other data collision resolution algorithms such as choosing the highest or lowest value of a specified field, or choosing the earlier update, depending on the underlying application’s need.

Outcomes

Improves the processor’s BC architecture – upgrades the application availability to a continuous availability architecture, enables efficient utilization of server capacity, and improves system scaling by integrating with multiple geographically-dispersed fraud detection systems
- Incoming requests are load-balanced by assigning them to a server with the least workload
Integrates the NonStop-based authorization application with the Linux-based fraud detection solution without requiring code changes to either
Identifies and suspends suspicious transactions before authorization occurs
Dramatically reduces costs of fraudulent activity

HPE Shadowbase Products of Interest for Business Continuity (Step 1 above)

HPE NonStop Shadowbase Basic Replication Software (BE441AC/QSA49V6)
HPE NonStop Shadowbase Advanced Replication LTU (BE442AL/QSA50V6)
HPE NonStop Shadowbase Compare Software (BE445AC/QSA53V6) (not shown but recommended)

HPE Shadowbase Products of Interest to Support Real-time Fraud Detection (Step 2 above)

HPE NonStop Shadowbase Basic Data Integration Software (BE443AC/QSA51V6)
HPE NonStop Shadowbase Advanced Data Integration LTU (BE444AL/QSA52V6)
HPE NonStop Shadowbase Essentials Software (BE446AC/QSA54V6)
HPE Shadowbase Basic Application Software 1-8 core or 9+ core (WSA51V6T1/T2)
HPE Shadowbase Advanced Application Software LTU 1-8 core or 9+ core (WSA52V6T1/T2)