ATM Testing - April 24, 2024
As the global finance industry continues its journey toward digital transformation, cloud computing has emerged as a key strategic tool for organizations to leverage.
Specifically for the ATM channel, it has become critically important for fleet owners to minimize operational costs – while still delivering an exceptional customer experience. Taking a strategic approach to ATM testing can help organizations achieve both goals.
Cloud technology facilitates what Gartner calls “anywhere operations” and defines it as “... a business operating model designed to reach customers anywhere, enable employees anywhere and use digital technologies to deliver business services anywhere.”
Further benefits of using cloud technologies in your ATM testing environment, include:
- Accessibility from wherever your teams are located
- Improved collaboration and productivity
- Faster time to market for new products and solutions
- Flexible deployment options
- Scalability, both up and down, to fit the organization’s needs regardless of size
- Lower costs
3 Key Steps to Migrating ATM Testing to the Cloud
#1 - Define Your Requirements
It is important that you identify your specific testing needs and goals, so that you can determine how migrating to the cloud will help achieve these requirements. You must analyze and inventory your current resources, capabilities and processes so that you make all of the necessary improvements as part of your cloud-based ATM test lab.
Since there are a wide range of deployment options available from each cloud provider, you’ll need to review and define key implementation parameters, such as:
- Deployment topology
- Sizing and performance requirements
- Connectivity to your existing systems and infrastructure
- Access and security requirements
- Operational processes (e.g., application updates, OS updates and security patching)
#2 - Build a Migration Plan
Your plan must outline a step-by-step process for how the migration will occur. Be sure to consider potential challenges that may arise and have contingency plans in place. The migration plan should be tailored to your specific business processes and requirements in order to minimize disruptions.
Some key things to consider in your migration plan include:
- Get all internal and external stakeholders involved and engaged in every stage of your migration process
- Work with partners who have the knowledge and experience needed to virtualize your ATM testing assets and deploy them into the cloud
- Have contingency plans in place for any challenges you may encounter along the way
#3 - Deploy Your ATM Testing Assets in the Cloud
Once your cloud environment is operational, it’s time to deploy your test tools and virtualized ATM assets (that have previously been captured and converted for use in the cloud). This migration should be done carefully and systematically, enabling your teams to monitor its process, make necessary adjustments, and prevent any unforeseen disruptions.
With a cloud-based testing environment and virtualized ATMs in place, you can test your ATMs just like you would in a physical lab - except that your testing and QA teams now have 24x7x365 anytime, anywhere access to them.
As a leading authority in ATM and payment testing technologies, Paragon Application Systems is committed to helping our customers embrace digital transformation (and the benefits that come with it).
Interested in finding out what that looks like for your organization? Request a consultation with our team today.
