A Look Inside Visa’s ‘Operation Center East’

Have you ever wondered what a Visa payment processing center looks like? If not, it’s likely because you wouldn’t expect it to be one of the highest-security, well-protected buildings on the planet. With its “Operations Center East”, it’s being said that breaking into a prison would be easier. Oh, did I mention that it has a moat?

It houses 130 workers, many of which are entrusted with the task of keeping systems up and hackers out. But due to the fact that the most important servers are internal, unable to communicate with the outside world, hackers are less of a problem than they could be. In terms of quality, Visa’s latest Operation Center is “Tier 4” ranked, meaning that every piece of equipment considered important has a battery backup. Even the air conditioner.

Planning to storm Visa’s OCE? You might want to be aware that the roads leading up to the building have hydraulic bollards underneath the road can be raised up on a dime to stop you in your tracks. And don’t bother waiting for a hurricane to tear the roof off for entry either – the building can withstand winds of up to 170MPH.

As you might expect, a data center like this would consume a lot of power, so in the event of an outage, diesel generators on-hand are able to keep everything up and running for a full nine days. Those generators have enough stored power to deliver electricity to 25,000 households.

Why so much emphasis on security? When your company deals with billions of dollars that belong to other people, you best protect it the right way.