Online transaction processing

 Introduction

Ever since the advent of and the use of online currency to transact various forms of business, many forms of aids to manage swift processing have been developed. Currently, online transactions are the fastest form of transacting businesses. Online transaction processing refers to a group of well specialized systems that manage online transaction-oriented applications.

Where can they be used?

These technologies are on offer for use in various industries such as the airline, banking, manufacturing and forex industries. Through use of these systems, the above mentioned industry firms are able to manage massive workloads at low costs and efficiently. In the recent there has been a surge of demand for quick movement of money on the internet to facilitate transactions. As a consequence, new forms of online currency “banks” such as PayPal and Alert pay have come up to facilitate receiving and making of payments on the internet. The success of these forms of banks generally relies on the use of online transaction processors.

Advantages/ benefits of processors

The main benefits of these systems are that they are efficient, quick and quite easy to use. On top of all these the systems are generally cost effective if adopted and implemented in the proper manner. The ease with which online transaction processors carry out their tasks is to behold. A task that would take a person to complete in a couple of days usually takes the processors a couple of hours if no minutes. On top of this, they do not leave any paper trail thus they quite manageable especially for large transactions. This makes the systems ideal for large firms and companies that would otherwise spend a lot more in employing staff to carry out the tasks with less efficiency. Through use of these systems, one is able to achieve the goals of cost-effectiveness and costs-benefit optimization in business planning.

Disadvantages/ shortcomings of the processors

As is with most online systems, the greatest concern with these online transaction processors is the trust and reliability issues. The systems are not as secure as their offline counterparts and are thus more susceptible to either indirect or direct attacks. Also, due to data corruption may cause unavailability of the system as a whole thus costing the users quite large sums of money. On top of these, as is with all systems, regular maintenance is a requirement so as to ensure that they are secure and functioning properly. As a consequence, the system may have to go offline this period and for firms depending solely on the systems incur losses thus defeating the goal of cost benefit analysis in business planning.

Curbing problems the problems associated with the processors

Since there is no absolute way to determine whether the systems in use are completely secure from attacks, the only other option is to try and acquire these systems from re-known firms that provide insurance against such threats and other vulnerability issues. Other measures may include constant maintenance to ensure that the systems are secure for day to day use.