SkySparc’s consultants used OmniFi to accelerate testing and migration for SPF Beheer’s Wallstreet Suite upgrade
Challenges
When SPF Beheer faced an upgrade of Wallstreet Suite, Robert Segaar, Manager, Operations and IT Asset Management, quickly realized his team had a large and business-critical project ahead, in addition to maintaining business-as-usual service levels.
Support was ending for version 6.5, and version 7.4 represents a significant change in functionality.
In addition, the team had a wish list of modifications and improvements. Says Segaar: “We wanted to end workarounds in some instrument set-ups and eliminate some earlier CSDs. We wanted to get the benefits of improved auditing functionality. We were looking for much faster performance from the accounting interface. And we also wanted to take the opportunity to clean our legacy static data and transactions.”
As a result, the decision was made to migrate data and configurations to a clean “factory settings” version of 7.4.
Once planning for this major project began, Segaar recognized the scale of the work required on the client side and the need for additional resource and expertise. He set out to find a project partner that would work well as part of his team, but also bring a robust, independent view and specialist skills to the table.
We had experienced and knowledgeable consultants from SkySparc who worked with us throughout the project as part of our core team.
Robert Segaar, Manager, Operations and IT Asset Management, SPF Beheer
Solution
Following an RFP process, SkySparc was selected as offering the best solution.
SkySparc consultants are noted for their testing and quality assurance methodology, and have a strong trackrecord of successful client-side projects.
SkySparc was asked to take on two critical client-side roles: responsibility for testing and quality assurance throughout the upgrade process; and for the migration of data and transactions to the new 7.4 production environment.
In both cases, SkySparc consultants planned, managed and also executed these tasks. Although Segaar initially wanted his in-house team to undertake a good part of the testing, he realized early on this wouldn’t be fully achieved due to the heavy involvement of the team in other project tasks. “It was a good, early decision to ask SkySparc to handle the testing. Ultimately it contributed to the success of the project,” he says.
For the migration, SkySparc proposed the strategy and managed the execution, first cleansing the data, then migrating static and market data and finally, the active trades. OmniFi was also used to map and export the data from the old to the new production environment, speeding up the process and ensuring accuracy.
System configuration and data cleansing proceeded in parallel work streams, with unit testing and reconciliation of the static data and transactions representing an important early element of the work. Later, integration, migration and user acceptance testing (UAT) were thoroughly executed. SkySparc built a library of client-specific test cases and used OmniFi to automate regression testing at each stage. Says Segaar: “Using OmniFi meant SkySparc could do a lot of testing in a short time. It really helped to meet the deadline for the project.”
OmniFi was also a big success factor in our project. Using OmniFi, SkySparc was able to run the testing and conversion cycles much faster than we would have been able to do ourselves.
Robert Segaar, Manager, Operations and IT Asset Management, SPF Beheer
Results
The project, which took nine months, was completed on time and within budget.
Since go live, the business has experienced a stable system with much improved performance.
Careful preparation and project management with clearly defined responsibilities contributed to this success, says Segaar: “We had a good internal team, and SkySparc’s contribution was very important. Their consultants were experienced in testing and migration, with a quality-driven, proactive approach that really showed through.”
Using OmniFi to automate the testing and migration ensured a very thorough process. “We now have a library of test cases and we’ll be using OmniFi in the future,” says Segaar.
