Sun, Bank of America Beta Payment Processing on Solaris

Published: October 4, 2007

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Server and operating system maker Sun Microsystems is not just a provider of data center gear--it is a user of it, too. While Sun may not be coping with the level of complexity that IBM and Hewlett-Packard wrestle with, being roughly one-eighth their size, Sun nonetheless has a large and complex operation with thousands of partners and tens of thousands of end users.

This week, Sun announced that it was working with Bank of America, its own bank, to pilot a global financial messaging system for end-to-end payment processing. The application, which adheres to the ISO 200222 XML messaging standard for financial transactions, is being implemented in a program created by Sun called the Java Composite Application Platform Suite, or Java CAPS. And the system runs on the Solaris Unix operating system, of course. Java CAPS is not a new program, but one that has been updated over the years by Sun to do payment processing that adheres to SWIFT government regulations. The new twist for the latest implementation of Java CAPS is that it uses XML data formats. The new code enables Sun to link directly to BoA's systems and not go through a lot of intermediate steps in its payment processing.

This is something that both Sun and BoA hope other customers will find appealing, and in Sun's case, it will drive sales of Java CAPS and possible Solaris and Sun servers as well. BoA is testing the new code out with Sun first, and plans to link to other customers using the updated Java CAPS program in the first quarter of 2008.

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