Information Session on T2S User Connectivity
Technical and Operational criteria
for the selection of T2S Network Providers
Silvio Orsini
T2S Infrastructure Co-ordinator
Disclaimer
The following slides summarise the main aspects of the current considerations of the Eurosystem with respect to technical criteria on the basis of which the
T2S Network Providers will be selected.
Although some of the issues presented can be considered fairly stable and will most likely be part of the final decision, others are not, and might therefore be
dropped or substantially altered. Consequently, these slides should by no means be used by any T2S Actor or potential T2S Network Provider to make
any decisions or investments with respect to connectivity in T2S.
Although this presentation has been delivered to a number of CSDs that have - together with the Eurosystem - signed the T2S Memorandum of
Understanding, they have been published on the ECB website in order to give all economic actors equal and simultaneous information about the status of
Summary
1. Introduction
2. Volumetric assumptions
3. Selection criteria
1. Introduction
The T2S platform
• The T2S platform widens over three Regions:
– Region 1 Italy
– Region 2 Germany – Region 3 France
• The remote access to the platform is enabled by VANs
– Region 1 and region 2 are directly connected to the VANs
– Region 3 relies on the accesses to VANs at region 1 & 2 (using the internal 4CB network)
1. Introduction
Responsibility
• T2S’s responsibility ends at connection point P
• The network interface at T2S platform and user domain are technically decoupled
• How the user interface is defined is not specified by T2S
• The gateway (GW) is the VAN termination-end under the VAN providers responsibility T2S platform domain Users’ domain VAN VAN VAN P m iddl ew ar e GW GW Notary log U
1. Introduction
Connectivity architecture
• The VANs are connected to the 4 sites avoiding any single point of failure
• The VANs take into account workload management and periodic swaps (i.e. rotation, recovery)
– Users do not perceive in which Region a module is running – Rotation/recovery is
transparent (no changes in user configuration is requested) R eg io n 1 R eg io n 2 T2S platform domain Gateway Gateway Gateway Gateway Site 1 Site 2 Site 3 Site 4 VAN domain T2 S a c tor (us e r or a pp lic a tio n ) network user domain
2. Volumetric assumptions
Volume of transactions
With reference to:
“T2S General Technical Specifications - General Technical Design” version 2.2.0
2. Volumetric assumptions
2014 volume breakdown
The following figures show the estimated volumes to be managed by T2S core system (the mainframe) and the archiving platform in the first year of production
2. Volumetric assumptions
Network workload (2)
• Each VAN provider shall size its infrastructure based on its expected market share (theoretically it can also be equal to 100%) and shall size the infrastructure to ensure it meets performance and volume requirements
• Capacity planning breakdown data shall be provided to T2S administrator every year (for sizing and monitoring purpose)
3. Selection criteria
The VAN services
T2S connectivity services shall support
– file and message transfer, real-time (A2A)
– file and message transfer, store-and-forward (A2A) – web access to T2S platform (U2A)
3. Selection criteria
Message and file differentiation
• Message is a data structure containing a single financial instruction or information based on ISO20022 standard – (maximum message length will be defined)
• File is a data structure containing two or more
3. Selection criteria
Real-time file/message transfer
• T2S and Users are able to exchange messages and files
• A real-time message exchange (request-response) shall be completed within few seconds;
• If no response is received in this timeframe a “timeout” message shall be generated by the VAN and sent to the sender
3. Selection criteria
Store and forward file/message transfer
• The sender can transmit message or file even when the receiver is not available
• The message/file is delivered by the VAN as soon as the receiver becomes available
• VAN shall provide to the sender a delivery notification failure
– after a maximum number of failed retries when the receiver is available
3. Selection criteria
T2S Business Continuity support
VANs shall support T2S Business continuity without any user intervention or impact on user configuration
– in case of intra-region recovery, between primary and secondary site in the same region, on request of 4CB staff, VANs are
requested to switch the traffic in few minutes
– in case of inter-region recovery, between the two Regions, on request of 4CB staff, VANs are requested to switch the traffic in few minutes
– on periodic rotation occurrence (e.g. almost every six months), the VAN provider must switch the traffic between the two
Region, on request of 4CB staff, during a week-end, in few minutes (planned operation)
3. Selection criteria
Restart after disaster
1. Usage of VAN message retrieval service
– VANs resend instructions, settlement confirmations, static data changes, and maintenance instructions
– the same account positions can be rebuild with a reasonable likelihood (but no guarantee)
2. As an alternate option the users should resend messages and files
– the operational risk would significantly increase because of the needed interaction with many parties
– a huge co-ordination effort is needed in relation to testing message recovery
3. Selection criteria
Recovery of the VAN
• The VAN shall automatically manage its recovery, exploiting the redundancies, to assure the service continuity
• T2S is not going to rotate in case of the regional disaster of a single VAN (users of that VAN will not be able
access T2S platform)
• Recovery from one VAN to another is a user responsibility
3. Selection criteria
Security features
• VAN shall provide the technical infrastructure to
exchange messages in compliance with strict security requirements
– Confidentiality – Integrity
– User identification and access control – Non repudiation
• 4CB staff shall
– decide who is allowed to access the T2S domain
– monitor the technical operations at the T2S interface of the VAN – manage all the encryption keys from T2S used in the VAN
4. Organization, operation and plan
Service catalogue and manuals
• The VAN shall provide a catalogue of connectivity services for its customers as part of the T2S overall service catalogue
• Jointly with the 4CB staff, the VAN shall provide and maintain two reference manuals:
– Operations manual, that describes the network related components installed in the premises of the Service Provider and contains the complete list of monitored elements
– Escalation manual, that formalises the escalation process in normal and abnormal conditions
4. Organization, operation and plan
Support and Incident/Problem management
• Support Team:
– the VAN providers shall offer to 4CB and the T2S actors a Service Desk service
– the 4CB Teams shall be able to contact the VAN providers Support Teams 24 hours seven days a week during all year
• Trouble ticketing system:
– the VAN providers shall record all actions, as well as the timestamp (time and date) at which the actions occur, in its central Trouble ticketing system
– this information shall be made available to the 4CB upon request and as part of the periodic incident review activity
• The VAN providers shall provide:
– initial response time for blocking problems: a maximum will be defined – first status update time for blocking problems: a maximum will be
4. Organization, operation and plan
Implementation requirements
• The VAN providers shall preliminary implement a proof of concept; the PoC infrastracture will remain as internal test environment for the 4CB (INTEG, IAC)
• The VAN providers shall support for implementing and executing integration and acceptance tests of the
Information Session on T2S User Connectivity
Thank you for your attention
