SWIFT 7.2 In-House Infrastructure Upgrade

Author: Benjamin Haws (benjamin.haws@axletrees.com)

Our Professional Services Team receives many questions about the upgrade to the SWIFT 7.2 environment, its process, and its alternatives. Prior to moving forward with the SWIFT 7.2 upgrade, there are many points that will need to be reviewed. For the purposes of this article, we will explore the two aspects of the upgrade; hardware and software. The first step is to get a holistic view of the scope of your upgrade by performing a GAP analysis on your environment.

Hardware

Starting with hardware (your In-House SWIFT Infrastructure); simply put, if the last time you upgraded your servers was 3 years ago, then it is time to upgrade them again. This is just one of the aspects that must be brought into consideration for the cost analysis. Server upgrades are expensive and time-consuming. This is one of the data-points that we bring to your attention while going through a GAP analysis with our Professional Services Team. The type of hardware that will need to be procured also depends on the Operating System that you use; a good windows server can be procured for a nominal price compared to that of a UNIX server. Naturally, questions about security will arise, and that will be covered in a later article.

Software

The hardware that you will be using is dependent on the operating system (OS) that your SWIFT Application is running on. The new version of SWIFT may not work on your current environment if it does not conform to the OS’s below. Together, let us dive into the underlying operating systems that your servers will be running. There are four operating systems that SWIFT 7.2 release supports:

Windows Server 2016
AIX 7.2 w/ TL1 & SP1
Oracle Solaris 11.3.7.5.0 for SPARC Enterprise Servers
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 6.7 (supported till 2020)
- RHEL 7.2

As with many OS upgrades, there are a few restrictions to take into consideration. Those restrictions don’t allow for a direct upgrade from legacy OS’s to a modern one such as 1) Windows ’08 to ’16; 2) Solaris 10 to 11 and 3) RHEL 6.4 to 7.x. Also, take note that if you change your hardware platform to Linux, you must use a new licensing before the installation or migration. There are also minimum software requirements that have been set forth, at the writing of this article such as:

Alliance Web Platform SE 7.0.70
SWIFTNet Link 7.0.50
Alliance Gateway 7.0.50
Alliance Access 7.1.23
Alliance Entry 7.1.23
Alliance Messaging Hub 3.3.x

Now, these could change as the final notes for the SWIFT 7.2 upgrade have not been released yet, making it hard for an infrastructure team to budget and plan accordingly. As part of the GAP analysis, all software to connect your institution to the SWIFT network needs to be considered. Failing to account for something can be problematic during the implementation process and create unexpected delays.

As a SWIFT Premier Certified Service Bureau, we have the technical know-how to help upgrade your current infrastructure or can help you migrate your operations to our Service Bureau. Our commitment as a company is to help find the connectivity solution that achieves your goals using the most economical solution. We arrive at this recommendation by performing the necessary analysis on your current infrastructure, finding out which pieces need to be upgraded, attaching a dollar value and comparing that what it would cost for you to join our service bureau.

About Axletree Solutions

Axletree Solutions the leading SWIFT Connectivity and Treasury Management expert, providing end-to-end solutions to banks and Fortune 500 companies worldwide. Our team has dedicated specialists and fully managed data centres which deliver a wide range of financial solutions. These services include SaaS SWIFT Connectivity and Treasury Management Solutions (Treasurytree) along with Format Translation & Integration “Symmetree” and Compliance & Reporting. Axletree helps corporates and banks automate processes and efficiently manage, optimize and improve their global messaging and treasury operations.