This case-study was viewed 2601 times

company: Paynet Kenya Limited www.paynet.co.ke

Serial to Ethernet Connector

• industry: electronic banking
• location: Nairobi, Kenya
• employees: more than 50
• representative: Shaun Mumford, Technical Manager

Victoria Veligodsky: What were your main challenges which made you search for this kind of software?

Shaun Mumford: We have a major investment in equipment including specialist items like Hardware Security Modules which have a fairly high unit cost. These HSMs we have are serially connected and we needed to move one of the units to our Disaster Recovery Site. At the same time we wanted to use the HSM for our tests system that is based at our main site. This required us to share a Serial Device with option of local and remote access.

Victoria Veligodsky: How did you come to know about Serial to Ethernet Connector by Eltima Software?

Shaun Mumford: We performed a web search and found Eltima's Serial Splitter. We tried it, but it was not the solution we were looking for. We have received all the needed assistance from Eltima's support manager Janna Chelsy and she advised us to use Serial to Ethernet Connector instead.

We have installed Serial to Ethernet Connector in and it worked perfectly for us. The product has worked exactly as expected, simply and with no fuss.

Victoria Veligodsky: Did you try using products by other software developers before choosing Eltima's solution? What made you prefer Serial to Ethernet Connector?

Shaun Mumford: We looked at Hardware serial switching units and a different sharing approach, we also examined the possibility of writing/building something ourselves. In the end Eltima Software offered us a number of approaches that we investigated. Restrictions imposed by our application and the way they access the HSM's meant that the Serial to Ethernet Connector was the only available option.

The main reason for choosing the Eltima's solution was the Pre-Sales support we received. Eltima's staff took the time to understand our requirements and suggest which products could help and how. We were able to test the software to ensure it did what was required. This helped us refine our requirements and test possible solutions, once we were sure it would work, placing the order was a simple task and the pricing of the software made it simple to get approval.

Victoria Veligodsky: How are you using our product now? And what are you using it for?

Shaun Mumford: We have been able to move the Serial HSM to a Remote Site. Using Serial to Ethernet Connector we can access the Hardware Security Modules from our test system as if it is local.

In the event of us needing to activate our Disaster Recovery Site we are able to simply switch to our DRP located Application and enable the HSM there to be used as the live unit.

Victoria Veligodsky: How did you actually benefit from using Serial to Ethernet Connector?

Shaun Mumford: We have the security of the HSM at the DRP Site, without reducing our ability to use it as a test unit on a daily basis. Serial to Ethernet Connector has saved us between 3000 and 10000 USD which we would have had to spend to purchase another HSM.

Victoria Veligodsky: Thank you very much Shaun for your time and participation.

Shaun Mumford: Thanks for all the assistance we have received from you. We could not have had a better experience with Eltima Software.