When the clock strikes midnight – will your ATMs be fully tested and up and running under Windows 10?

It was around this time last year when ATMmarketplace editor, Suzanne Clucky posted Windows 10 migration for ATMs: The clock is ticking to the publication’s blog:

Thirteen-and-a-half months from now, support for the Microsoft Windows 7 operating system will end.

By then, all but a handful of financial institutions around the world will have made one of several choices that include:

• Migrate to the newer operating system at considerable cost and replacing any ATMs too old to upgrade.
• Enter a contractual arrangement with Microsoft to provide ongoing security support for the outdated operating system at considerable cost.
• Take a gamble that hackers will not discover a security hole in the outdated operating system or, that if hackers do discover a security hole in the system, they’ll attack someone else’s ATMs at their (considerable) financial and reputational cost. Those deployers will, of course, be hoping that the “someone” is you.

Today, January 14, 2020 looms large on the calendars of financial institutions as it’s barely a month away. For the NonStop community where there is a large presence of NonStop systems front-ending networks of ATMs, migrating these key touchpoints with customers from Windows 7 to Windows 10 represents a major challenge, not with the actual deployment but with the testing to ensure there will be no disruption to the services being provided by the financial institution. With this in mind, Paragon Application Systems has just posted to its blog, Windows 10 ATM Migration: Automate Everything. This post is a follow on to a June 5, 2018 post, Tick, Tick, Tick: Migrate to Windows 10 and Test Your ATMs Before Time Expires  but the image of the clock continuing to count down even in this twenty-third hour is a reminder of just how urgent the situation has become. And with the hour almost at hand, once again Director of Global Product Marketing, Paragon Application Systems, Steve Gilde, highlights that there is no way to complete the task of migrating your ATMs to Windows 10 without leveraging automation:

“You’ve made your ATM virtual inventory. You’ve performed side-by-side comparisons of all your Windows 7 and Windows 10 ATM operations. You have cloned your physical ATMs. And you’ve given appropriate access to these virtual ATMs to your staff. Now what?

“First, congratulations on creating a solid testing foundation for your Windows 10 migration project. By having a complete set of virtualized Windows 7 images to compare to your new Windows 10 devices and deploying the right infrastructure to share test cards, media, results and reports, you have significantly expanded your testing capabilities.

“Now we’ll go through the ATM Test Plan Checklist a little further, so you can begin automating to save both time and money, and prepare your organization for whatever comes next.”

If you would like to read the full story as posted November 19 2019 then just click on the embedded link referenced above or cut and paste the following into your browser:

https://www.paragonedge.com/blog/windows-10-atm-migration-automate-everything

Should this migration remain problematic for your financial institution then please call us or drop us an email; we certainly would like to hear from you and to point you to the value automating everything with Paragon can provide your financial institution.

Written by the Paragon Team

Steve Gilde | Director, Global Product Marketing | Paragon Application Systems

Direct: +1 919 741 4422 | Mobile: +1 404 844 7893