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Source:
www.lta.gov.sg |
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LTA Awards Contract To IBM
Building Of Backend Infrastructure For E-Symphony |
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The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has
awarded to IBM the contract to build the core backend technology
infrastructure for LTA¡¯s next-generation smart card e-payment system ¨C
Symphony for e-payment (e-Symphony). |
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The infrastructure, together with the
technical services provided by IBM, will facilitate the replacement of
the current Enhanced Integrated Farecard System (EIFS) with the
e-Symphony. |
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The high-performance and high-speed backend
infrastructure is expected to double the present capacity and will be
capable of handling about 10 million financial transactions per day. |
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It will be ready in time for the completion
of the Circle Line, which is expected to carry about half a million
passengers when fully operational. |
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The e-Symphony incorporates the Contactless
E-Purse Application Standard (CEPAS) and will therefore allow multiple
suppliers to issue the contactless smart cards, which are currently
issued only by EZ-link. This could bring about competition among the
suppliers and in turn reduce the cost of smart cards to benefit users. |
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In winning the tender bid, IBM Singapore
leveraged the unique strength of the High Performance On Demand Solution
(HiPODs) team from IBM India Software Labs in Bangalore. IBM¡¯s HiPODs
team connects the expertise of IBM's top consultants, developers,
engineers and researchers around the world. |
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IBM¡¯s HiPODs team assists clients globally
in architecting and developing high-performance, scalable technology
solutions. |
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The team also helps clients by
developing and sharing development and design best practices and
methodologies for high-pr high-pr high-performance solutions. |
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The team works with IBM¡¯s largest
clients, such as eBay and Charles Schwab, whose requirements have
evolved from high-volume Web architectures toward high-performance
on demand operating environments. |
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During the LTA project implementation,
IBM¡¯s HiPODs team will develop a proof of concept (POC) for the
new LTA infrastructure at the IBM India Software Labs. |
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The POC will optimise the system
architecture performance for the chosen middleware and hardware
platforms before deploying the solution in Singapore. |
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IBM¡¯s HiPODs team will also provide
technical mentoring to LTA system architects; conduct final
performance testing; and assist in deployment until the system is
stable. |
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The high-performance, high-speed
infrastructure is expected to enable a fast data processing
throughput rate of up to 650 transactions per second during peak
hour operation and 100 percent delivery of data transfer among the
processing systems. |
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Silvester Prakasam, Deputy Director of
Fare System, LTA said "IBM provided a viable value proposition.
Thus, we have chosen IBM to provide a backend infrastructure to
support the long-term growth of the public transport ticketing
system in Singapore." |
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Patricia Yim, Managing Director, IBM
Singapore said "The IBM team will leverage the best combination of
solutions, cutting-edge innovation and business methodologies,
including IBM¡¯s HiPODs global innovation team in India, to support
LTA. The LTA win further strengthens IBM¡¯s position as a
technology and innovation partner of choice for high value-add,
globally integrated on demand capabilities." |
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IBM¡¯s suite of high-performance
solution for the LTA e-payment infrastructure also includes the
following market-leading components: |
- Hardware: System p Servers,
System x Servers, MPro Workstations, IBM Storage, Tape Libraries
and Printers
- Software: WebSphere Application
Server; WebSphere MQ; IBM DB2 (Viper); Rational Application
Design, Development and Testing Tools, Tivoli Tools.
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About CEPAS |
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Contactless E-Purse Application
Standard (CEPAS) is a Singapore standard for smart cards and their
related devices, which was introduced in March 2006 to replace the
existing Cashcard Standard. |
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It allows any smart cards that comply
with the standard to be used across a wide variety of payment
applications such as transit, retail and banking. |
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Source:
www.lta.gov.sg News Release 3
Oct 2006 |
IBM to build smartcard e-payment
infrastructure for MRT network
