Fortune 100 Financial Services – Sybase to SQL Server Conversion
A Fortune 100 global money center bank selected Capax Global to perform an end-to-end conversion of
a suite of 43 production applications from Sybase to SQL Server.
The bank’s technical team selected SQL Server as its strategic platform to achieve up to 30x better
performance, and to leverage SQL Server’s superior clustering and DR technologies.
In this project, Capax delivered a holistic turn-key conversion. Capax performed all pre-conversion
analysis and project planning, database, application, and script conversion, comparison profiling and
testing. Capax provided design specifications and extensive configuration support during deployment of
the bank’s new SQL Server Development, Testing, Production and DR environments.
Capax also provided full support during the Technical Quality Assurance and User Acceptance Test phases
– developing data staging scripts and automated testing harnesses to help speed conversion validation.
The production implementation of this very large migration was flawless and near zero-defect, with
only 2 issues identified over the course of post-implementation monitoring and support. Capax attributes
the standout success of this project to the technical expertise of its staff, and to Capax’s close,
highly effective partnership with the bank’s technical team.
Top U.S. Bank – Hedge Fund Services Platform Capacity and Resiliency
Major U.S. bank brought in Capax Global to re-engineer the back office processing workflow of its Hedge
Fund Servicing platform. The principal objective was to enable the bank’s Hedge Fund Servicing platform to
support Asia-based operations during the overnight batch processing window. A secondary objective was to
build in 10x greater capacity and improve resiliency in critical applications and batch workflows.
Capax performed extensive analysis of the Hedge Fund platform and identified a number of technical issues
requiring remediation. Capax proposed a dual track approach that would not only address the technical issues
directly, but in a second parallel track, help upgrade the bank’s ability to provide capable and responsive
production support.
In the first track, Capax performed end-to-end technical analysis and delivered major engineering changes
to provide unrestricted 24x7 access to the application suite from Asia locations, eliminating contention with
the U.S. overnight batch cycle.
Capax also designed and built several key system enhancements to achieve performance, capacity and resiliency
objectives. They created a high-performance BizTalk reporting facility leveraging SSIS to extract hedge fund data
from the Advent Geneva accounting platform and its satellite systems. Capax then used this facility to create a
set of reconfigurable reporting extracts of hedge fund performance and P&L data for the bank’s clients and their
RiskMetrics and Measurisk vendors.
In the second track, Capax introduced BizTalk, SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), and WCF technologies to
platform support staff, leading design reviews and collaboratively building proof-of-concept prototypes with
Application Development and Infrastructure teams. Capax led BizTalk training and practice discipline ramp-ups that
gradually transitioned BizTalk/SSIS development and support to the internal team.
To facilitate more capable and responsive production support, Capax also provided expert guidance on Application
Development process improvement. Capax created a Source-Safe code repository and SharePoint system documentation
site, established a development environment version control baseline, defined a scheduling and planning approach
for new code builds, built UI test automation and load profiling for ongoing platform capacity assessment, and laid
down a framework for object and data dependency identification and testing.
The success of both the technical deliverables and the staff development in this engagement is a reflection of
the broad thinking and total end-to-end commitment that Capax delivers to its clients.