How well do you know what a modular payment platform is? Let’s look at some examples. I will explain what modular payment platform is and why you should pay attention to this feature when buying or renting payment platform software for your business.
Do you know the feeling of discomfort, irritation and sometimes anger, when your relatively new computer, tablet or smartphone is really slow?
It seemed to have worked excellently only yesterday, everything was so quick, the programs launched immediately, and now it takes several unbearably long seconds to open your favorite application. And even when the application is running you cannot help feeling that it still is slow.
There are various reasons for such a slow-down. On the other hand, they can all be described in one sentence:
“The hardware of the computing device, e.g., CPU, memory, hard drive or flash drive is no longer able to cope with the increased data flow generated both by the gadget operating system and programs installed.”
Nearly always, it is the inevitable result of the software “evolution”. With each update, the operating system, as well as other software acquire the necessary changes and amendments, most of which are not even obvious to a regular user; nevertheless, they increase the load on the hardware. Normally, this eventually ends up in buying up-to-date and more powerful hardware with the subsequent copying of applications and data from the old device to the new one.
Such “transfer” from personal computers and devices means an unpleasant but «acceptable» waste of time to set up a new device.However, in the business world, if you stop the system (e.g. in information processing) to renovate or replace equipment, no matter how brief it may be, you lose profit, and if the worst comes to the worst, you suffer losses or your reputation is damaged.
When I say «information», I mean it in its broadest sense. Transactional data processed by online payment processing systems is also a kind of information. The more successful the payment service provider is on their market, the greater the data flow continuously processed by their processing system.
Theoretically, the amount of information that flows through the processing system per unit time tends to infinity. Therefore, it is crucial to enable a payment processing platform to increase its capacity if necessary. Put simply, to make it scalable.
Besides, payment service software, just like any other software, is constantly evolving acquiring new features and capabilities. At the same time, the payment processing platform update should be carried out “on the fly”, without interruption in payment processing.
To solve these problems, beGateway, – our SaaS platform for online payment service providers, -uses the so-called modular software architecture. It’s like beGateway was a sort of Lego, where every brick (module) performs its specific functions and to a certain extent, can work independently.
Combining the modules, we can create the specific configuration of the payment acceptance and processing platform, required by each particular payment service provider in their particular case
The advantages of the modular architecture platform
1. Modular architecture makes payment platform software amazingly scalable.
If any module (e.g., payment gateway module responsible for interaction with the acquiring bank) reaches the limit of its transaction processing capacity, to tune the bottleneck, you just need to add another module of the same kind, which will be parallel to the first one. Payment platform software offers as many modules operating on a parallel track as you need for stable operation of the payment service provider’s processing system.
2. Modular architecture along with module load balancing system used in payment platform software allows increasing the computing capacity of the processing system hardware.
In other words, you can change the HW to up-to-date and more powerful equipment, add new modules and perform software updates of the platform “on the fly”, without having to stop the system.
3. Finally, the modular architecture provides additional reliability and stability of payment processing platform as a whole.
Of course, continuous operation of a payment service provider’s processing system depends not exclusively on the intrinsic properties of their processing platform, but also on various external factors irrelevant of the payment service software: hosting and communication companies, the human factor and so on.
But largely thanks to the modular architecture of our software (the modular architecture is not the sole factor, of course), the average uptime of all beGateway payment processing platform copies which now operate under our customers’ various brand names, is 99.9%. And we are proud of it.
