South Africa-based eBucks, the online banking arm of FirstRand Bank, is implementing an integrated data mangement solution from Oregon's GemStone Systems and Sun Microsystems.
The system will consist of GemStone's GemFire, a shared-memory solution that integrates and delivers data from multiple sources in real-time, which will be deployed on Sun's Fire 6800 servers and Solaris platform.
Vincent Coetzee, chief technology officer, eBucks, says: "We expect to save one-third of the maintenance and associated technology costs using a combined GemStone and Sun solution verses the traditional application server and relational database configuration."
Raj Kulkarni, chief technology officer, GemStone, says the system "will provide eBucks with the flexibility and scalability needed to support its current customer base and the explosive customer growth forecasts of two million users in the next two years."
eBucks provides more than 500,000 customers with a variety of services, including retail banking, vehicle and home financing, a customer appreciation programme and an online shopping solution through redeemable eBucks currency.
On a monthly basis, the eBucks system - which already uses GemStone caching technologies - processes some $400 million worth of payments and averages one million log-ons. The four-year old operation moved into profitability within two years of opening - a full year ahead of schedule.