Finding out how to monitor active/active environments without letting the tech get in the way  ~ Steve Kirrage, Director of Stanchion Payment Solutions, Middle East. Ask any financial IT operations team what their number one headache is, and the answer is likely to be unplanned downtime. Reducing downtime is easily a top priority for IT professionals working for banks, card services and payment processing companies, where any lag or downtime within the payments processing system is unacceptable. The challenge is that payment systems are getting more complex, rather than simpler which means ensuring large credit card and debit transactions are processed, without a hitch, is getting more difficult by the upgrade. Often great lengths are taken to install active/active environments to reroute transactions should a bottleneck or failed switch occur in a payment environment. There are many benefits associated with active/active application architecture: more controlled planned downtime, capacity expansion, and [...]