| Client: Rabobank / IBV / Teleservices Project: TCP/IP Interface Dates: March 98 – August 99 |
| Telephone Banking Inter-System TCP/IP Interface
Design C Programming
Design C Programming |
A new version of the Rabobank’s Telephone banking & Call Centre system (Rabofoon) implemented its telephony and voice response functionality on RS6000 hardware, running AIX. All database & banking functionality was still performed on the bank’s HP NonStop (Tandem) server systems. Each user telephone call to the Rabofoon system required a connection/session to be established between the RS6000 and NonStoplatforms.
The implementation of an interface between the AIX system and the Rabofoon Tandem was initially intended to be a Standard TCP/IP based Remote Server Call environment. However, some software version incompatibility problems arose between the IBM and Tandem systems. These problems were encountered at a crucial stage of system integration and testing. Tony assisted in formulating an alternative approach. The original approach was modified slightly and required Rabo to custom build a PSUEDO-RSC interface. The PSUEDO-RSC interface was actually a custom built based Pathway environment which ran many server processes. Each server provides a dedicated TCP/IP socket connection between the AIX and the Tandem. When one of these servers needs to pass data on to the existing Rabofoon/EDB system, it uses standard PATHSEND functions to initiate Inter-Process messages. The approach meant NO changes were required to the Rabofoon Telebanking application, and only minor changes to the newly developed Telephony application.Some test software was available, but with very limited functionality.Tony debugged and corrected various problems in the test software and used it as a single session interface, to help crucial testing and integration to proceed without delay. Tony then designed and programmed the more production orientated PSUEDO RSC TCP/IP socket server interface for connecting the two systems. This interface offered multi session functionality, and included much greater configuration flexibility, event logging, etc
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