VeriFone Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: PAY), announced today that it has completed development of electronic payment systems equipped with Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), another industry first.
The use of SNMP allows point-of-sale payment systems to be controlled remotely from central locations and to be integrated with sophisticated network management systems.
The first SNMP-equipped versions of its Vx Solutions countertop and wireless systems will be shipped to an international customer engaged in a major POS network rollout. SNMP will be generally available worldwide on select VeriFone solutions by spring 2006.
Network administrators use SNMP to monitor and map network availability, performance, and error rates, and to find and solve network problems. In a POS environment, network managers are able to determine what TCP/IP-capable devices are running and their level of performance.
"As POS solutions transition from dialup connectivity to the IP world, they are able to take advantage of remote management and sophisticated network management," said William C. Nichols, VeriFone vice president of Emerging Markets. "VeriFone is the first to offer SNMP capabilities in POS solutions, which provides card transaction acquirers with a wide variety of tools to manage their merchant portfolio."
SNMP provides the acquirer with a wide variety of tools to manage their merchant portfolio. Benefits include the ability to perform preventive diagnostics remotely without technician field visits, manage always-on connectivity and monitor data in real time for later backup analysis. Utilizing SNMP, a network manager could monitor and manage multiple remote POS systems, monitor transaction volumes, disable a terminal and even determine "out of paper" status.
SNMP encompasses a set of standards for communicating with devices connected to a TCP/IP network, including routers, hubs, and switches.
VeriFone upgraded its TCP/IP libraries and CommServer libraries to support SNMP and also developed an SNMP software "agent" that resides on the Vx Solutions payment system and can respond to SNMP messages. SNMP enables corporate network managers to integrate payment devices with management systems such as Hewlett-Packard's OpenView.