Case study

Kutxa-Vital-Banco Madrid orchestrates their software configurations with Micro Focus

Challenge

Three financial institutions based in Spain – Caja de Ahorros de Guipúzcoa y San Sebastián (Kutxa), Caja Vital Kutxa (Vital), and Banco Madrid – have come together to improve their IT processes and management. Kutxa is responsible for maintaining and managing IT operations for the three companies.

Kutxa-Vital-Banco Madrid wanted to define and implement an improved approach to its corporate software configuration management processes, as this controls and manages application development across heterogeneous technological environments for the three institutions.

This would control and guide the development process from initial demand within the business through development and into production. This model would also have to guarantee the quality of software developed by third parties.

As part of this project, the main objectives set were as follows:

  • Establish a standard development procedure covering analysis, design, construction, tests and roll-out.
  • Define and control compliance with established procedures around software change requirements.
  • Automatically control the scaling of the environment where it is distributed.
  • Coordinate, synchronize, and automate the transition to different environments (development, preproduction, training, production).
  • Provide full audit and tracking around software changes and enable comprehensive monitoring.
  • Enable the support of multiple technologies, including Mainframe environments, VisualBasic, and J2EE, across different equipment located in different centers.
  • Automate quality control to ensure that any update or release meets the organizations’ strict requirements around quality and security.

Solution

Micro Focus offered a comprehensive solution based on architecting the right software configuration management for Kutxa and then automating these processes.

Kutxa is using Micro Focus Dimensions CM for the software change and configuration management around its processes, while ChangeMan ZMF is managing the release of software for its mainframe environments. Solutions Business Manager integrates all the solutions to apply the right workflow and processes. The implementation stages included analysis of the banks’ management needs. The Micro Focus solutions were then implemented and configured in accordance with the banks’ requirements and organizational models.

The first Micro Focus solution within the bank to enter production was around the CRM. This allowed Kutxa-Vital-Banco Madrid to test its business process support as well as manage software change processes. This real-world experience enabled Kutxa to expand into the entity’s division for electronic banking, contracts, and documents that are generated in all applications.

Following the implementation, Kutxa-VitalBanco Madrid has substantially more efficient software change management, as well as improved release management across its distributed and mainframe environments. With Micro Focus, the organizations can identify the current condition of any change request in development and know the status of the modifications being implemented for a specific order. The solution has also orchestrated the operations during the development stage around quality control.

Micro Focus’s products enable Kutxa-VitalBanco Madrid to manage development across multiple platforms, synchronize different environments, and plan transitions to production. The transition of software into production can also be automated, reducing the time taken to carry out software updates and change requests still further.

Results

Kutxa is expanding the number of applications managed with Micro Focus and expects to have more than 40 applications under the control of the solution in the next few months. Among these applications are core banking applications in product and service management, risk management, and corporate infrastructure.

“When we initially looked at our software change management, we knew the importance of getting the business processes right. Working with Micro Focus, we have been able to achieve our goals as well as reduce the time taken to push software change requests through. Overall, we have been happy with the value that Micro Focus has delivered to us, and we expect to see more from the solutions as we add more applications,” commented Miren Alvarez Picos.

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Kutxa-Vital-Banco Madrid case study