Technology
Financial institutions’ ability of using information technologies enables them to stay efficient in the both local and global financial markets, act promptly and adapt rapidly changing environment conditions. Since technology has become an indispensable component, institutions’ need for a well-established, efficient and flexible technological infrastructure increased dramatically. MKK, in parallel with the improvements in technology, aims continuous enhancement in its information technology infrastructure as well as increasing its service level.
MKK Information Technologies is already aware that to accomplish these goals, below conditions have to be met;
- Having highly qualified human resources; as the real base for “innovation”
- Establishing effective Information Technology Processes for Product Development and Systems Management
- Using “Information” and “Technology” effectively and efficiently
Projects Management Office
MKK projects that have been developed in compliance with MKK’s dynamic and innovative vision are managed and coordinated with using newest technologies and up to date project management techniques as well as presenting utmost team work by the Project Management Office.
In MKK, human resources are regarded as the core of Information Technologies and the aim is, not only using human resources for only performing business as usual processes (Run MKK), but also changing Turkish Financial Market and taking it one step ahead by developing and executing value added projects in parallel with MKK’s vision and strategy.
As a part of project management methodology, for all projects that are either “in progress” or “not yet started”, daily (scrum) and weekly progress meetings (PPM) are organized to give direction to project teams, as well as monthly “PSC” meetings, which are used for providing regular updates to senior management and discuss latest status and milestones.
Software and System Development
“Systems Design” and “Systems Development” are performed under a multi layered architecture framework for the projects that are in progress. During the development of Central Depository System, the software has been designed and developed to be a web based Java application, compatible with a 3-layered architecture. Business logic applications run on application servers that are designed between presentation layer and data management layer without making any changes on the database. Requests coming from different channels are transmitted to application layer by the help of an SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) based web application. By adopting this structure, a trustworthy, scalable and manageable architecture is aimed. Furthermore, by the help of logical decomposition of application components, repetitive usage of decomposed application components in software’s life cycle is also accomplished.
Processes and procedures for Version Management System are prepared to meet global standards; by the help of integration of SVN, Ant, Maven, Jenkins, Apache Archiva and Jira applications, a “Continuous Integration” based version management system infrastructure was maintained. Therefore, for in house developed applications (in MKK), packaging and deployment processes became automated, and new versions have been developed in 70% shorter time with minimized bugs.
Together with Institutions Integration project, an “SOA based integration infrastructure” has been established by taking security and performance criteria into consideration to provide online integration to external systems. Providing Central Depository System services through web services to “service demanding” external organizations, is also under the scope of the project that was put into service in 2011.
MKK uses agile software development method in its application development lifecycle. In this manner, high project productivity and quality, project’s adaptability to changes, and efficiencies in project’s market access speed have all been achieved. Through the agile method, project owners (business unit participants), analysts, quality assurance specialists and software developers all work within the same team and determine the issues to be included in new versions by performing anayses together. The developed product is continuously monitored by the project owners and end user tests are performed by the relevant business units. Every morning, daily meetings are held by teams that involve IT and business units to discuss completed activities and action plans. Monthly review meetings are also held by teams to evaluate their own performance.
IT Service Management
Critical system components are monitored 24/7 to take precautionary actions and prevent the service interruptions before they happen. By the help of single-point monitoring of information technology processes, it is possible to detect, manage and report problems before exceeding the threshold values, and increase service level quality.
“Call and Problem Management” is performed by the Help Desk that offers services in compliance with “ITIL” processes. “Change and Configuration Management” processes and “System Components” are also designed and managed in parallel with the ITIL processes based on a well-established set of rules and procedures.
