Contact us for a full PDF version of this case study with a detailed upgrade defect analysis.

Delivered according to plan

• Start date – 27th January 201
• Go-Live – 22nd September 2019
• Duration – <8 months (34 w)
• 2 w of Post Go-Live Support

Delivered according to budget

• Phi Partners €660k
• Phi Travel/Expenses €108k
• Total Phi price €768k
• Estimated price with Finastra/RightClick €1m

Context

• Top 3 Bank in Israel
• Summit V5.5 to V6.1 (V6.1.7.3 HF2)
• Oracle 11.2 to Oracle 12.2
• Windows Server 2008 to Windows Server 2016

Team

Collaborative project team, as designed and recommended by Phi:

Phi team (5 FTE)

• 1x Project Manager (on-site)
• 1x Principal Technical Expert / Dev’r (on-site)
• 1x Principal BA (on-site)
• 1x Lead BA/QA (nearshore)
• 1x Senior QA (nearshore)

Finastra team

• 1x Part time project co-ordinator
• 1x Full time developer (nearshore)

RightClick consultants for test automation.

Context

• Front Office, Back Office, Risk
• IRD, FX, MM, Bonds/Repos, Inflation for Bonds and Swaps, Equity TRS
• FX & Bond Position Monitors
• Market Risk Server, MR Analytics, MR Monitor
• Real Time Market Risk Limits
• STP for Documents and Payents
• Curve Server / Save Curve Server / Market Data Server for real-time pricing
• 50 concurrent users
• Around 15 inbound/outbound interfaces including customised real time interfaces, MQ
• ~400 batch jobs
• Around 120,000 lines of client code

Project Phases

• V6.1 Build + Build Test +
• Interfaces Smoke Test – 7w
• TMS GUI Test Automation in 5.5 – 8w
• TMS GUI Test Migration/Execution in 6.1 – 4w
• System Test (Batch/GUI) – Cycle I – 8 w
• System Test (Batch/GUI) – Cycle II – 6 w
• System Test (Batch/GUI) – Cycle III – 4 w
• System Test (Batch/GUI) – Cycle IV – 3 w
• System Test (Batch/GUI) – Cycle V – 2 w
• Interface Test – Cycle I – 6 w
• Interface Test – Cycle II – 6 w
• Pre-UAT (User Acceptance Testing) – 6 w
• Final UAT (User Acceptance Testing) – 3 w
• Post Go-Live Support – 2w

Success Factors

• Project leadership capability with expert domain knowledge (in both Summit and Summit upgrades specifically) was essential to put in place a realistic plan to start with, and to then provide the agility to stick to this plan and achieve it absolutely.
• Absolute knowledge of “what good looks like” from the Phi team, with respect to designing and staffing a successful upgrade project across multiple parties.
• Expert test phase planning and execution designed to capture critical bugs as early as possible in the schedule and to allow time for fixes from the Vendor.
• Good co-operation between all involved parties (Client, Phi Partners, Finastra and RightClick)
• Excellent communication within the project by means of daily project meetings and ad-hoc video conferences.
• Utilisation of near-shore resources kept costs down without compromising the quality of the team members
• Very good tracking of defects using HP QC testing tool
• Good overall quality of the core code, especially the Orbix replacement (DS, Summit Gateway, RT positions).
• Expert defect analysis and investigation by Phi mean that the reliance on Finastra was minimised (reducing “false reporting” and providing technical client-side workarounds to core bugs wherever possible)
• RightClick TMS GUI testing tool enabled us to execute a high number of test cases in each testing cycle.
• Bringing a Finastra dedicated Summit API resource and part-time project coordinator helped us to reach a high momentum within Finastra. All critical issues (no-go) where no workaround could be provided by Phi were successfully resolved by Finastra during the project.
• Provision of unofficial fixes by the Finastra developer for pre-testing by Phi reduced the impact of test blockers, and allowed earlier feedback of test results including knock-on problems.