The IBM® WebSphere® Multichannel
Bank Transformation Toolkit provides an architecture for building applications
that are deliverable on multiple channels. Enterprises within the banking
and financial services industries have successfully deployed the toolkit in
various topologies as the infrastructure for enterprise systems with high
transaction volumes. While the following topologies are specific to the banking
and financial services industries, for which the toolkit was originally conceived,
the ability of the toolkit to handle multiple business distribution channels
is generic and can apply to other industries.
See the following figure:

- Bank teller
- A bank teller application topology consists of a number of client
workstations with financial devices attached. The workstation downloads the
client application on request from a Web server. The client applications,
which mainly deal with presentation and local financial device handling, have
access to the branch server (that is, the solution application server) using
the HTTP or SSL protocols.
The solution application server
provides common services such as electronic journaling and parameter tables
to the client workstations, as well as access to the transactional logic of
the back-end enterprise servers. A toolkit server application can also
be deployed on the physical server for a regional or central data center without
changes to the application.
- Internet banking
- In an Internet banking topology, users obtain access to financial services
through a Web browser (or other device) connected to the Internet. The user
interface is normally HTML with additional technologies such as JavaScript™,
DHTML, or XML. In such an environment, the solution application server is
able to process requests from Web browsers (or other devices that issue HTTP
requests), obtain the proper data from enterprise servers, and generate the
appropriate view for the client device to display, using HTML pages for Web
browsers or XML messages for those devices that support it. The application
server is usually located at the central site, and is protected by a firewall.
- Kiosks and ATMs
- The toolkit can be used in kiosks or ATMs that run Internet technologies
such as a Web browser and Java™. In this environment, the client usually
is a Java application
(or applet). In addition to the presentation logic, the client application
manages the financial devices normally present in a kiosk (such as MSR/E,
chip card reader, receipt printer, passbook printer, bar code readers, and
touch screen displays) using the financial device services that the toolkit
provides. The kiosk connects to the application server using the HTTP or SSL
protocols. In some cases, kiosks are located in branches, which handle them
as branch workstations. Kiosks can also be connected directly to the server
through public or private lines.
- Mobile terminal and PDA
- Users equipped with laptops running a Web browser can connect to corporate
toolkit servers using the SSL protocol. In this scenario, the toolkit server
is usually located at the central site and is protected by a firewall. It
is also feasible to have mobile users connected to the branches to which they
belong.
The following diagram illustrates these business distribution channels: