Conference chefs::ssb_emulations

10.0. "Prosa ATM- MEXICO CITY" by CHEFS::16.42.3.89::chefs.reo.dec.com::kingi (The hole in the wall gang) Fri Feb 07 1997 12:19

	Visit to Prosa, Mexico City, 970109-970130

There were three different goals with my trip to Mexico City.

1. Certification of Diebold protocol in Prosa RED ATM network.
2. Certification of NDC protocol in Prosa RED ATM network.
3. SW training of people from Digital partners from some Latin 
American countries.

Prosa is a switch company who is responsible for running the RED 
network in Mexico. Around 85% of all ATMs in Mexico are connected 
to this network. The switch is a Tandem/BASE24 system. Line 
protocol SNA/SDLC was used for the certification. The machine used 
at certification was a WB21 (rel 6). 

Ignacio Serrano, Digital Mexico, assisted me at Prosa almost all the 
time. He helped me with the WB21 HW, but also spent a lot of time 
talking to and pushing on different people at Prosa. He was also 
participating in     the SW training.

The certification was planned to start on Monday 13/1. The WB21 
arrived to Prosa's lab on Friday 10/1. After some hardware problems 
with the dispenser, we (Digital) were ready to start on Tuesday 14/1. 
We did however not get any line connection to the switch until 
Thursday 16/1. After receiving the connection, we got the first 
Diebold downline load. The download was successfully received after 
modification of the device address for the security module. Apart from 
this, some adaptions were needed for the screens, as they were using 
Diebold predefined icons, for which we do not have font support in 
our emulation package. There were also some adjustments necessary 
(SW and HW) for the screen alignment with the menu keys. We were 
able to test some transactions, but the start of the certification was 
postponed (lack of resources and planning at Prosa) until Monday 
afternoon (20/1). On Monday  we got the information that the 
certification start again was postponed. This time until Thursday 23/1.

On Wednesday 17/1, three persons had arrived for the SW training:
Jose Alfredo Contreras	- IDS, Guatemala
Rodrigo Plobete		- GMD, Peru
Isidro Rodriguez		- STA, Colombia
The training was supposed to be held as a workshop, but the first 
days there were also a lot of waiting time because of the situation at 
Prosa. From Monday 20/1 to Wednesday 22/1 we had theoretical 
training at Digital's office.  

On Thursday 23/1 we went to Prosa to be available when the 
certification should start. We now got the information that this was 
delayed until the afternoon, and also the information that we had 
received the wrong download a week ago. We should get another 
download this day. Fortunately, there were no big surprises in the new 
download when we received it. It looked quite similar to the previous 
one, only some minor adjustment of the screens were needed. The 
certification was started, and  executed for about one hour this 
afternoon.

We decided on Friday morning that I had to postpone my trip home. 
This was originally planned for Friday evening, but as I couldn't leave 
right when the certification was started, I rescheduled my flight until 
Wednesday evening, 29/1. The Diebold certification continued on 
Friday and was ended at Monday 27/1. During the tests there were 
some discussions related to the status sending for dispenser and 
printers. It was agreed that we sent status correctly. According to the 
person who made the test execution, there were no other problems 
found in the Digital system.

On Tuesday and Wednesday we installed NDC-emulation and made 
some transaction tests. Also for NDC a few screen adaptions were 
necessary.
The real certification of the NDC-protocol was not started before I 
went back to Sweden. This will not start until the Diebold certification 
is  completely finalised, including writing reports, etc.. There will 
however be no problems to start the NDC-certification whenever 
Prosa is ready to do this. Ignacio knows very well what is necessary 
to get it started.

The successful results we finally achieved had not been possible 
without all the help received from Ignacio Serrano. This help was very 
valuable, in particular all the discussions in Spanish with Prosa. 
Thanks Ignacio!
 

Bo J�nsson