Monitoring payment hosts made easy

KaProbe® is an embedded non-intrusive solution aimed at monitoring Acquiring or Issuing Hosts.

KaProbe® is installed in a dedicated PC server and uses a copy of TCP/IP exchanged packets to monitor all transactions passing through the Host.

Easy to install, with no risk on existing systems, KaProbe® provides alerts and a full set of statistics on processed transactions.

KaProbe® is specifically adapted to monitor Hosts Service Level Agreements (SLA).

Features

• All data are filtered before being processed to guarantee cardholders privacy. (PCI-DSS compliant)

• Messages are parsed according to the message specification.

• Requests and Responses are matched.

• Alerts are processed in real time.

• Messages are stored in a database.

• Filters are user defined.

• Stats are pre calculated and stored in a database.

• User can access stats and past alerts through a web interface.

Why do I need KaProbe® for my organization ?

I want some tool to verify my SLA

My payment host is managed by a service provider. I have signed with him a SLA (Service Level Agreement). Now I want to validate that he fulfill his part of the agreement. KaProbe® is the solution to that problem. KaProbe® will give me the data to verify that my service provider provides the level of service I am paying for.

I want to monitor the service not the infrastructure

I currently monitor the infrastructure: host is up, programs are up, network is up... But that does not tell me anything about the kind of payment service I provide. For all that matter the payment transactions could be all refused and that wouldn't show up. KaProbe® is the solution to that problem. KaProbe® monitor the service: what is the percentage of transaction refused, what is the transaction response time, for credit card and debit card, by merchant category...

I want to build detailed statistics

I would love to build detailed statistics about when and where payments are made, about the rate of adoption of this new card, about the use of EMV... But adding a new statistic application to my host is a costly nightmare. KaProbe® is the solution to that problem. KaProbe® is a cost effective solution, with no modification on the existing systems that will build the statistics that I dream of.

KaProbe® Analytics

KaProbe® Analytics is the web interface to KaProbe® collected data and statistics.

KaProbe® Analytics is a server-side web application that provides users with an Internet interface to KaProbe® collected data and statistics stored in an SQL database. KaProbe® Analytics is a J2EE application.

KaProbe® Analytics can be customized in order to meet each specific needs.

 

Detailed Specifications

Architecture

KaProbe® is connected to a network HUB and capture all TCP packets received or sent by the monitored host.

All KaProbe® remote access and especially the web-interface can use a second IP interface not connected to the monitored network.

Parsing and filtering

All data are parsed and filtered using KaProbe® messages specification text file.

Example:

    define bertlv BM055_EMVDATA {
        bloc  bertlv(01)     VSDC_Chip_Data
        field bertlv(5F2A)   TranCurrency display-hex
        field bertlv(9F34)   CVR display-hex
        field bertlv(5A)     PAN display-hex show(+6)
    }

Sums and Alerts

Alerts are sent through syslog.

Sums and Alerts are defined using KaProbe® sums and alerts specifications text files.

Example:

    sum s1 {
        field1 == (val1 or val2)
        response_time <= 10s
    } during last 3600s

    alert a1 {
        s1 >= 8
        s2 % s3 >= 5%
    }

Measures

By default KaProbe® provides the following:

• Pairing request and response

• Response time calculation.

Interface

KaProbe® use a web base interface to display acquired data, stats and past alerts.

Database

All messages are parsed into fields using user defined message specification. The message specification file also specifies filters and masks to apply on each field, and which fields are to be stored in the database.

Past alerts and sums are also stored in the database.

Configurations

User can fully configure the messages, sums and alerts specifications text files.

Data filtering is defined in the message specification text file.

Database server and web server can be deported to other systems.

Customization

Although KaProbe® comes with a full set of standard data analysis, web developers can customize the stats web pages using JBOSS application server and Java language.