RBS 'Computer Glitch'

[AtW]

Good thinking!

Although I see a sudden rush to employ UK IT staff on the horizon.

The horizon is an imaginary line that recedes as you approach it

[mudskipper]

I'm with First Direct for my personal banking. No complaints, and telephone service is excellent - no automated button press, and call centre is UK based.

They usually have a 'refer a friend' scheme going, but can't see one on their website at the mo.

[TimberWolf]

The most widely used OLTP for banks is CICS which just happens to be a mainframe application although where I am we're converting it to IMS, also mainframe and one of the fastest and most widely used OLTPs. Mainframes: the future and bollocking good rates, so keep away.

CICS is an on-line transactional system though. Any idea why batch runs are still so heavily utilised?

I appreciate that banks would likely hand each other batches of transactions to be cleared between themselves daily, but I've heard a figure of 10s of millions of transactions being run in batches per daily run. Is it still mostly batch processing with banks?

[alluvial]

CICS is an on-line transactional system though. Any idea why batch runs are still so heavily utilised?

I appreciate that banks would likely hand each other batches of transactions to be cleared between themselves daily, but I've heard a figure of 10s of millions of transactions being run in batches per daily run. Is it still mostly batch processing with banks?

CICS will be used for daily data entry and enquiry tasks but there are always a helluva lot of data updates that need to be made on a daily, weekly, monthly etc basis. The overnight batch run will be made up of a whole load of different jobs that in general traverse sections of the database and perform any required updates such as applying charges, interest etc. There will also be a shedload of reporting tasks as well as interface creation that send data to internal and external systems.

In reality, with the sheer volume of data involved and the huge number of different tasks required, there will always be overnight batch runs and it's only really mainframes that have the power, resilience and capacity and cope with it.

[TimberWolf]

CICS will be used for daily data entry and enquiry tasks but there are always a helluva lot of data updates that need to be made on a daily, weekly, monthly etc basis. The overnight batch run will be made up of a whole load of different jobs that in general traverse sections of the database and perform any required updates such as applying charges, interest etc. There will also be a shedload of reporting tasks as well as interface creation that send data to internal and external systems.

In reality, with the sheer volume of data involved and the huge number of different tasks required, there will always be overnight batch runs and it's only really mainframes that have the power, resilience and capacity and cope with it.

Yeah, I thought about it a bit more in the meantime and batch runs are the only way you are reliably going to keep things consistent even for relatively simple transactions, not least those involving other banks. I would be surprised if the CICS systems didn't write to temporary databases or transaction files too.

[alluvial]

Looks like they might be hiring: Jobserve linky want CA7

[NorthWestPerm2Contr]

Looks like they might be hiring: Jobserve linky want CA7

Good news!

[TimberWolf]

Looks like they might be hiring: Jobserve linky want CA7

I read elsewhere that they were looking to get some of the people they recently sacked back on a short term contract.

[Dallas]

I read elsewhere that they were looking to get some of the people they recently sacked back on a short term contract.

I was there a couple of years ago in a different area, was sent some specs yesterday.

[alluvial]

I read elsewhere that they were looking to get some of the people they recently sacked back on a short term contract.

I was there a couple of years ago in a different area, was sent some specs yesterday.

Starting to sound hopeful.
Is it too much to hope that they have learnt a very painful lesson and are starting to turn things around?
I do doubt that the other banks will take note though. From my experience, the management that have started this lunacy are in general too stupid to listen to sense and have got rid of anyone that would tell tell them straight anyway.