Chapter 14, Problem 15DQ

Summary Introduction

Case Summary:

Visa's top-secret Operations Centre East (OCE) is the biggest, newest, and most advanced U.S. Data Centre. Rick Knight, senior vice president at Visa and formerly the head of global operations and engineering, is responsible for its security and functioning. The precautions are taken due to three major reasons,

1. Hackers are increasingly savvy
2. Data is an increasingly desirable black-market commodity
3. The best way to keep itself safe is with an information network in a fortress than instantly responds to threats.

Visa processes more than 91.6 billion electronic payments from around the globe in a year's time. Visa's system connects up to 2.2 billion debit and credit cards, millions of acceptance locations, 2.1 million ATMs, and 14,400 financial institutions. Visa, which completes an annual 'stress test' of its system in preparation for the holiday season, recently processed a peak volume of 56,000 messages per second. So what seems to us a simple swipe of a card or keying in our card numbers on an online transaction actually triggers a robust set of activities including the basic sales transaction processing, risk management, and information-based service.

Although hackers are a primary concern, OCE also worries about network capacity. Currently maximum capacity is currently at 56000 transactions per second. If the network goes over that capacity, the network wouldn't just stop processing one message, it would stop processing all of them. OCE is described as a "Tier-4" centre, which is a certification from a data centre organization. To achieve that certification, every (meaning every) mainframe, air conditioner, and battery has a backup.

Characters in the case:

Rick Knight, Senior Vice President Visa

Adequate information:

Prisons are easier to enter than Visa's OCE!

To explain:

The reason behind necessity of managerial controls of this high level.