Transaction processing is back in vogue

Transaction processing was the in-thing in the 80s that saw the rise of IBM transaction-processing monitors such as CISC and IMS platforms and Transaction Processing Facility (TPF). The TPFs were the platform of choice for supporting online transaction-processing applications (OLTP). OLTP applications support large number of concurrent users and update large shared database. In the 90s the phrase transaction processing became a passé. Since 2000s, there has been a dramatic rise in transaction processing resulting from the explosion in eCommerce. And also, the transaction started being accessed and processed from multiple delivery channels as opposed to a single channel.

Suddenly transaction processing is back in fashion. Traditionally, transaction processing has been the domain of mainframes that run big businesses across the globe. And these have been viewed as back-office functions that are matured business processes and therefore do not require much changes. However, the rise of the Net and eCommerce and now mCommerce have brought the mundane transaction processing to the forefront. The traditional transactional systems are under strain. First of, it has to process millions of concurrent transactions in a couple of seconds (max). These transactions can originate from across the globe. Second, these transactions transcend multiple delivery channels and multiple applications unlike in the past where each transaction type used to originate from a single channel and get processed by a single application system. Third, to keep up with changing consumer and business demands and to serve wider geographies and broader demographics, the transaction systems need to undergo rapid changes to keep up with the changing needs. Changing times leads to changing needs. The old and matured transaction processing systems are now at the forefront of IT transformation so that businesses can keep up with changing time.

A big challenge, indeed, for the IT manager of those systems!