Computer Sciences Corporation today announced results of a performance and scalability benchmark test of its CAMS II card and merchant system, the credit-card management component of CSC`s Hogan System. CSC`s five-month testing project proved that the strategic in-house card management platform can process a simulated workload of 100 million active cardholder accounts.
According to The Nilson Report, in 2003, no issuer had more than 50 million active U.S. credit card accounts. CSC`s benchmark shows that CAMS II can manage portfolios twice this size.
Introduced in 1998, CAMS II is used by major issuers, acquirers and processors worldwide. Its rule-driven architecture can manage a virtually unlimited range of electronic, and debit and credit card payment products. CAMS II is also engineered to speed and simplify new product introduction and customization for market segments and individual accounts.
"Most U.S. credit card processing is outsourced to third parties who achieve scale economies through product standardization," said Theodore Iacobuzio, vice president of research at TowerGroup, a leading financial services research and advisory firm. "An in-house alternative would contribute to a sea change by enabling more flexible credit-card processing at scale, under the issuers` direct control."
CSC`s five-month effort to benchmark the scalability and performance of CAMS II was conducted at IBM`s benchmarking center in Gaithersburg, Md. The project simulated a diverse portfolio of 100 million active card accounts. CSC`s card industry professionals developed the underlying representative test-transaction profiles over a three-month period. Both online and batch transactions were used for the test.
"CSC contracted IBM to benchmark CAMS II and it was the largest DB2 workload we`ve simulated in our lab," said Gerry Nelson, director of Testing Services at IBM`s benchmarketing center in Gaithersburg, Md. "We exercised our most current technology, IBM`s parallel sysplex and DB2 data sharing on our largest z990 processor, to benchmark this high volume workload."
CAMS II was able to achieve a peak online transaction rate of more than 1,500 transactions per second with 98 percent of them completed in less than 200 milliseconds. With more computing resources, the application appeared to be scalable to a higher transaction rate. More than 6.7 million statements were produced in a single batch cycle. The system also demonstrated its real- time posting capabilities by processing 15 million VISA/MasterCard interchange transactions, including 2.6 million payments in three hours.
"For many years, CSC`s Hogan core banking system has been one of the industry`s most scalable and high-performing applications," added Dr. David Blanton, president of the banking division of CSC`s Financial Services Group. "With this benchmark, CSC has once again demonstrated the power and strength of its systems, which are built to meet the processing demands of the world`s largest financial services firms."
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Founded in 1959, Computer Sciences Corporation is a leading global information technology (IT) services company. CSC`s mission is to provide customers in industry and government with solutions crafted to meet their specific challenges and enable them to profit from the advanced use of technology.
With approximately 91,000 employees, CSC provides innovative solutions for customers around the world by applying leading technologies and CSC`s own advanced capabilities. These include systems design and integration; IT and business process outsourcing; applications software development; Web and application hosting; and management consulting. Headquartered in El Segundo, Calif., CSC reported revenue of $15.3 billion for the 12 months ended Oct. 1, 2004. For more information, visit the company`s Web site at www.csc.com.