Info 202 Fall 2011

For nearly 20 years, onboard computing technology has been at the core of the automated teller machine (ATM). But today, Diebold, Incorporated is leveraging virtualization technology to introduce a prototype for the world's first virtualized ATM . . . Diebold developed the virtualized ATM prototype in collaboration with VMware. The companies' vision for the powerful combination of their innovative self-service and virtualization technologies is to enable financial institutions to address their most critical business priorities: enhancing security and mitigating fraud, improving operational efficiency, delivering optimal consumer experience and growing and retaining their customer base . . . Virtualization of the self-service channel removes the onboard computer from the ATM, tying each terminal in a fleet to a centralized computing resource. In this scenario, the physical components of a single server provide resources to many "virtual" ATMs . . . Consolidation will enable the establishment of a single secure data center . . . In short, virtualization will lead to a lower total cost of ownership and increased ATM uptime.

(SOURCE: http://www.findbiometrics.com/industry-news/i/9204/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6qtAfDfBUM ).

My Take

Actually, truth to be told, this development is deemed to be the world’s first virtualized ATM. Essentially, from what I understand, the virtualization will remove the need for the onboard computer at the ATM machine, and basically be right in front of your computer screen (this is what I assuming). If this does become a reality, this has a lot of benefits to be derived:

*Increased customer efficiency. By this, I mean, there should not be any more need for those pesky transaction fees, because now everything will be done in the cloud;

*Probably the best news is that, if this goes on a large scale rollout to the public, customers will no longer have to make a special trip to their bank or to a nearby ATM. All needed cash can be withdrawn right from their computer terminal;

*But the biggest news is that of safety. People are always worried about visiting the ATM late at night, being attacked, or being a victim of skimming and/or phishing. But now being able to withdraw your cash from the convenience of your own home, safety should no longer be a prime concern;

*Other higher levels of Security will be reached, such as mitigating of financial fraud, and most importantly, Identity Theft. As you can see from the above quote, because of virtualization, a lot of the hosting and transaction requirements will take place in just one data center. This means, that resources can be pooled together a lot easier to track down and apprehend thieves and hackers.

Finally, it should be noted that this is still in the prototype stage, and that the primary target market at the present time is for the financial sector, covering the retail space. The benefits I described above are just my own extrapolations if it were applied to the every day banking consumer. Also, Diebold is working with VMWare on this project, and their virtualization platforms are amongst the heaviest used worldwide.

In my view, although is truly a giant step forward, this just underscores the significance and impact of what cloud computing and virtualization will mean to us in our every day lives. In short order, anything and everything will be available at just a few clicks of the mouse, and best of all, at a price we can control and afford.