The power of in-sprint automation

The power of in-sprint automation

Automation

The power of in-sprint automation

A large securities firm sped up time-to-market with end-to-end test automation on the cloud.

Client

A leading securities trading firm.

Goal

Build a cloud-based automation framework to test client’s trading platform.

Tools and technologies

C#, Ranorex, TestRail, Simulators and Selenium.

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

The client had a legacy trading platform that had grown and evolved over time. The platform consisted of a stack of 33 applications, built on a variety of technologies and architectures. Testing new features and additions was proving to be a big challenge. A simple change in one feature would warrant a verification of the complete application. To ensure that any change does not affect other functionality, the client needed to do extensive regression testing and verification. This was a cumbersome process with over 20,000 or 30,000 test cases being checked and executed manually. The trading firm had to deploy over 20 people to carry out this exercise. The client had tried to automate the testing process with a variety of tools but was not able to get the efficiencies it wanted. In addition, the client had multiple squads working on different apps, functionality and features. Each squad used its own automation suite. It was becoming a challenge to co-ordinate the work of the different squads and ensure that changes made by a squad did not impact the overall functionality of the platform. Iris’s brief was to design and deploy a common cloud-based test automation framework for the client’s trading platform to ensure that it could launch new features faster.

SOLUTION

Using its cloud-based ready-to-deploy test automation framework, Iris sped up the deployment of new features for the client’s trading platform. The cloud solution, based on Amazon Web Services (AWS), featured continuous testing of multiple products on a common framework layer. It allowed for complete capacity planning of spinned cloud instances and need-based shutdowns. Iris executed the project using acceptance test driven development (ATDD), a methodology that involves collaboration between customers, business teams and development teams. The teams jointly created the user stories and put down the acceptance criteria for any feature or functionality. Then tests were designed within the common framework to check if the feature met the acceptance criteria. What was unique about the approach? Typically, automation is introduced towards the end of a development cycle. You would find that, in most projects, developers bring in automation in Sprint 4 for features developed in Sprint 1, 2 and 3. As a result, return on investment isn’t maximized. Our team introduced ‘in-sprint’ automation, enabling 90% test automation with every sprint. This resulted in more efficient and faster testing, and cost savings for the client.

OUTCOMES

The client’s deployment speed improved significantly with 90% faster execution in each sprint cycle and 80% faster script development. The cloud-based solution is 100% configurable for on-demand execution on AWS, which reduced the client’s cloud infrastructure costs by 70%. The new ability for complete capacity planning through the use of infrastructure-as-code (IaC) for spinning up cloud instances helped the client achieve end-to-end (E2E) automation of regression/ functional test cases.

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Cloud-native app opens new markets

Cloud-native app opens new markets

Cloud

Cloud-native app opens new markets

A prominent bonds trading network expands its market reach with new products and geographies.

Client

The world’s leading provider of trading services for fixed income products

Goal

Create an IT architecture to support growth across markets and products

Tools and technologies

AWS Cloud, Java, Springboot, React JS, React, Redis, Kafka, C#, Ranorex and Test Rails

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

The client, a market leader in bonds trading, was expanding to new markets, acquiring new businesses, introducing new products and adding features to existing offerings. To support its growth plans, it needed an agile, modern, cloud-based platform.

Some of the business needs the client wanted to address with the new solution were:

  • How do we achieve scale with minimal latency in operations and service?
  • How do we integrate new businesses seamlessly and without disruption?
  • How do we roll out new features faster to improve customer experience and get a competitive edge?
  • How can we use data to help customers make better trading decisions?
  • How can we monetize the data?

As a solution partner, we had to not only create a new IT architecture for the client’s trading platform but also constantly re-engineer and improve the architecture to quickly meet emerging business needs.

SOLUTION

We deployed a scalable, highly available auctions solution on the AWS cloud using Java, Springboot, React JS, React, Redis, and Kafka.

Optimized algorithms now achieve best matching with minimal latency while offering full price transparency. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) provide greater insight and real-time price discovery for specific asset classes.

The new cloud-based architecture enabled the client to create products and monetize market data. Those products helped customers get accurate data in real-time to take better and faster trading decisions.

Test automation across the trade lifecycle using a combination of C#, Ranorex, Test Rails helped the client update user interfaces (UI) without reducing performance. It also eased integration linkages between the acquired solution’s frontend and the client’s existing backend.

OUTCOMES

The introduction of Agile methodology and the cloud-native application has helped the client significantly speed up time-to-market for new releases – it is now able to make releases several times a year.

The new IT architecture now allows the client to offer trading in Muni bonds (an acquired product) and U.S. treasuries (a new service). The solution also enables the client to support Chinese markets.

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Deliver personalization via report automation

Deliver personalization via report automation

Asset Management

Deliver personalization via report automation

A leading asset management firm personalized offerings by automating processes to glean customer insights.

Client

A leading asset management firm based in the U.S.

Goal

Help asset managers deliver personalized solutions to establish differentiation.

Tools and technologies

AquaData Studio, Java, Perl, Python, Spring, Hibernate, VRS, PostgreSQL, Composite and MS SQL.

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

Asset management firms face challenges such as a generational shift in the demographic and new patterns of investment behavior. They also face changing regulations, and aggregators with low-cost products who are thinning the pool of investible funds. Our client wanted to differentiate itself by offering customer-centric solutions that are flexible and adaptable. But its existing systems presented several challenges:
  • Its front, mid and back office functions needed a lot of manual effort
  • Business rules were inconsistent and data duplication was rampant
  • User experience on the platform needed significant improvement
  • Clients were unable to get a holistic view of their accounts
  • Data validation was consuming a lot of manhours

SOLUTION

We partnered with the asset manager to deliver better digital experiences to all its stakeholders. We created a robust data ecosystem and used advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence/machine learning or AI/ML, intelligent automation, cloud computing and test automation.
  • Our team streamlined and integrated the client’s front, middle and back office functions. We helped the client integrate their back-office solutions with their custodians, reducing complexity in information exchange, eliminating reconciliation and increasing operational efficiency by more than 75%.
  • We automated the creation of more than 7,000 reports.
  • Improved experience for retail and institutional clients by automating the generation of complex compliance and strategic reports.
  • Developed a strategic reporting module that gave customers a holistic view of their accounts and holdings.
  • Set up a business data validation team offshore.
  • Enabled self-service option for bespoke reports.

OUTCOMES

Our solution helped the client significantly improve front-end experience for customers; reduce manual effort and costs in the back office; and improve overall operations efficiency. Highlights of the outcomes:
  • Automated the exhibits process with 75% increase in throughput
  • Our report automation solution reduced manual effort by 70% and improved monthly artefact generation throughput by 40%
  • Reduced manual effort for customization in client profile management by 60%
  • Achieved $50,000 savings monthly in data validation for client profile management

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Striking the right balance of care

Striking the right balance of care

Interactive

Striking the right balance of care

A work-life services provider transformed the care experience for its customers with a user-friendly, intuitive and responsive web platform.

Client

A leading provider of work-life services to caregivers.

Goal

Enable caregivers to easily set up and manage care schedules.

Tools and technologies

HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Bootstrap, JQuery, Atlassian User Interface (AUI), AngularJS and Liferay DXP7.2

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

Many young and middle-aged workers combine both work and caregiving responsibilities that cover not only children but extend to parents and pets. Research shows that employees who achieve greater work-family balance are more satisfied in their jobs and happier with their families.

For our client, a leading provider of work-life services, the key to enabling that balance is the setting up of care schedules for dependent or vulnerable family members. The client’s existing solution for managing such schedules, however, was not user-friendly, flexible, or mobile-responsive.

The client's websites offered no provision to schedule premium services for care.

The websites were served by a Liferay V6.2 content management system (CMS) as the common backend for which support ended in December 2020.

SOLUTION

We designed and developed a web platform for scheduling care for family members including parents, children, self and pets, with e-mail notifications and quick access to customer care. We migrated the websites to Liferay DXP7.2 CMS backend.

To improve the performance of the web application, we developed website forms as AngularJS-based single-page applications. We developed a responsive website that worked flawlessly across different-sized screens on desktops, tablets and mobile phones.

We used Agile methodologies right from the requirements-gathering phase until the final deployment of the web platform to shorten development time.

To save cost and time, we used an almost identical codebase for both iOS and Android platforms (except for a few configuration settings and device specific features).

Furthermore, our team performed continuous integration using automated build tools, and script and code repositories, to save time during the development, testing and deployment phases.

We ensured that the sites we built followed the WCAG 2.0 and OWASP accessibility and security standards.

OUTCOMES

  • The web platform we developed ensured the client’s care scheduling interface was user-friendly, flexible and mobile-responsive.
  • Customers could easily create, change and cancel schedules. They also had easy access to records and historical data.
  • The common codebase across iOS and Android ensured significant cost savings in the development and maintenance of the application.
  • Agile methodologies and a high degree of automation reduced costs and shortened the development time.

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A robust platform for investment advisors

A robust platform for investment advisors

Brokerage & Wealth

A robust platform for investment advisors

A prominent U.S. brokerage firm transformed its monolithic legacy apps for registered investment advisors (RIAs) into a microservices-based open platform and significantly improved user experience.

Client

A leading brokerage and wealth management firm based in the U.S.

Goal

Create a best-in-class platform for registered investment advisors (RIAs).

Tools and technologies

Pivotal Cloud Foundry, Spring Boot, Spring Cloud Gateway, Angular 6, TIBCO AMX BW, SQL Server, Hybrid Automation Framework (Selenium, Appium, Perfecto) and AppDynamics

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

With growing competition from nimble fintechs, custodians are under pressure to provide RIAs a differentiated experience. Many of them are looking to use advanced technology solutions such as machine learning, artificial intelligence and data and analytics to help RIAs improve the end consumer experience.

Our client had multiple legacy platforms built over the years that was preventing it from providing their RIAs with a secure, integrated and cost-effective solution.

SOLUTION

Iris has been played an integral role in transforming the client’s technology landscape from a legacy system to a modern, open, API-based architecture. The solutions we have implemented include:

  • An open access platform with API architecture as part of the client’s go-to-market strategy. We continue to work on integrating third party vendor applications and RIA back-office applications onto this platform.
  • The platform is highly reliable and secure with protection of data at rest and in motion using encryption. We have enabled encryption of data in transit to protect over 100+ integrations outside the client environment. We have used SAML and OAuth for user authentication.
  • An SSO solution provides multi-factor authentication (MFA) and a framework for privileged access management to secure customer information. The Iris team has also ensured mobile security for iOS & Android devices and helped the client plug platform vulnerabilities.
  • Developed responsive design as part of the UI transformation initiatives for core trading, advisory and educational solutions.
  • Transformed monolithic application into micro services-based architecture.
  • Provided flexible development capabilities with distributed Agile teams and extensive test automation reducing time to market and achieving significant cost savings.
  • Digitized end-to-end client onboarding with features for bulk onboarding, advisor authorization and ability to submit statutory documentation online and offline.
  • Created back-office solutions for money movement and cash and asset management that allowed RIAs to get a holistic view of clients and serve them on the go.
  • Customizable workflow to serve needs of individual advisor firms.

OUTCOMES

We enabled the client to securely integrate over hundreds of third-party apps and RIA back-office applications. Our test automation and Agile solutions helped the client reduce time to market for new features by 40%. Reduced the regression cycle duration by 60% with automated tests over six months. Increased test automation coverage to 70%. Reduced defect leakage to less than 1%. Improved performance of business transactions by 30% to 40% on the web platform. Addressed > 70% of security and vulnerability issues, leading to a better customer experience.

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Gain speed to market with DevOps solutions

Gain speed to market with DevOps solutions

Wealth Management

Gain speed to market with DevOps solutions

A wealth management firm moved from a legacy application environment to a microservices ecosystem. The switch cut production time and expedited the roll-out of releases.

Client

The client is a leading wealth management firm in the U.S.

Goal

DevOps strategy to shorten production timelines and speed time-to-market.

Tools and technologies

JIRA, Jenkins, GitHub, AWS, ECR, Docker, EKS and Helm.

BUSINESS CHALLENGE

The client used multiple legacy applications with a highly complex codebase to run its operations. As a result, it had long production lifecycles and spent several person-hours in integration and deployment.

On the technology front, the client faced challenges in the way server-side applications were defined, stored and managed. Its IT team also had to manage the deployment of multiple Kubernetes manifest files.

SOLUTION

Iris recommended that the client move to a microservices ecosystem. Here’s how we deployed the solution:

  • We defined an enterprise-level DevOps strategy using Helm
  • Identified the scope of apps that needed to be on-boarded across the enterprise
  • Implemented a DevOps pipeline for microservices on the Kubernetes cluster
  • Deployed the infrastructure, dependencies and applications with Kubernetes using Helm
  • Delivered continuous improvement through Helm release updates and rollbacks

OUTCOMES

The DevOps pipeline significantly improved time-to-market for new releases.

  • 20x faster release cycle
  • 40% improvement in quality with end-to-end traceability
  • 15x improvement in the mean time to deployment (MTTD)

We also put in place robust security control and validation processes; and provided for auditable release requests.

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Scalable, flexible, efficient, and secure automated solutions for data ingestion and multi-channel distribution.

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Modern insurance product data services platform

A unified, secure, scalable architecture for product data access and publishing with seamless downstream integration.

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