Testing Integrated Trading Platform An approach

Transcription

1 Integrated Trading Platform An approach With the Integrated trading platform (ITP) investors will have access to wide range of asset classes. A robust support for the traders and investors, ITP provides user friendly facilities in different investment areas like Equity, F&O, Currency Derivative, commodities, Mutual Funds etc. The ITP platform is designed to appeal to both experienced traders and beginners/new traders alike by offering them investment strategies in an integrated environment with a single log-in.

2 Integrated Trading Platform An approach Introduction to Integrated Trading Platform Financial markets have broadened and deepened significantly in recent years. Integrated Trading platform (ITP) where investors can access all financial segments like Trading in Equity, Bond, Commodity, Currency, Derivatives, IPO, Insurance and Mutual Funds from a single window. From an investor s standpoint, applications like integrated platforms of financial markets are a significant value add for the efficient allocation of capital across all asset classes which enhances investor s capital growth and distribute risk on all asset classes. Importance of ITP ITP minimizes personal trading frictions like transaction costs. Investors may exploit information by trading on both markets simultaneously instead of acting in one market only, so that market impact costs are diminished. These platforms offer hedging opportunities, since a long position in one market can be hedged by building up a short position in the other market. With advanced features, ITP provides investors with Insight, Research, Trading and Review facility, technical analysis, charts, trade reports, DP holdings and charges like DP, Trade related etc. on a single platform. ITP applications can be deployed across devices like Desktop, web, Mobiles and Tablets. Hence the investor remains connected to the market 24/7. Cigniti proprietary and confidential. Not for public distribution 2

3 Integrated Trading Platform An approach Ordinary trading platform Integrated trading platform Most of the online and new investors are shifting towards applications like integrated platforms which are user friendly, easy to use and secure. Industry estimates forecast that almost half of the world Internet population will be using Integrated Platforms by year-end. With its rising popularity, Integrated Trading Platform is evolving as a new, distinct channel. Features to be validated Our Capital Markets COE has robust experience in testing Integrated Trading Platform Applications where we can validate following areas: IPO's Apply for IPO's, Order Book, Account Book Funds transfer Cash Transfer : Bank to integrated trading account, Bank to IPO, Bank to MF,NEFT / RTGS Standing instructions for SIP Withdraw Cash : Trading account to Bank, MF to Bank Allocate Funds : Equity to IPO, Equity to MF Trading Equities, Commodities, Derivatives (F&O), Currency derivatives & Mutual Funds Validating different Order Types -Market Order, Limit Order, Stop Loss Order Executions and operations-partial executions, Order creations, Order modifications, Order cancellations, Basket trading & Reports Order Book, Trade Book, Positions, Margin Calculations, Mark to Market, P&L Reports Cash Reports: Order, Trade, Turnover position, Ledger, order History, DP Report, Limit Statement, Contract Tracker, stock net position report, Funds Transfer Report, Withdraw Cash Report. FNO, Commodity, Currency Reports : Order, Turnover position, Margin, Limit Statement, Trade, Order history, Trade history IPO Bank Equity OFS Mutual Funds Insurance Integrated Trading Platform DP F&O Currency Derivatives Commodities Cigniti proprietary and confidential. Not for public distribution 3

4 Integrated Trading Platform An approach Challenges Integrated Trading Platform has inherent complexity in terms of business flow and business rules. is a critical element in ensuring business delivery. The technological advancements, product innovations, changes in the functioning of the application, time criticality in the development and the deployment of the application, have alleviated the complexity level, which in turn has put the application at higher risks and greater testing challenges. To mitigate these risks, the first step is to identify the challenges and risks; the better the identification of risks, the lesser the chances of failure. Business Challenges/Risks Developing Complex Trading Scenarios & Test Cases. Replicate Real-Time complex Trading Scenarios with extensive test data. Integrating Front, Middle and Back Office. Compliance to evolving Market Regulations. Building and Maintaining Domain competency. Changes in business model, rules & regulatory requirements, introduction of new products, down time (revenue lost), time to market. Technical Challenges/Risks Interaction of multiple systems through several interfaces and gateways. Automation of Complex scenarios & interface gateways. Managing and maintaining fit-for-use test environments inspite of the complexities involved in the trading domain. Performance testing to ensure acceptable levels of latency as per the SLAs. Risk of failure, new technology integration, legacy applications, migration to a new application, 3rd party application issues affecting your own system. Approach To address the challenges and risks of Integrated trading platforms, the current business environment demands complex and dynamic solutions in less time and with limited resources. A dedicated team of domain and testing experts need to identify various types of testing required for the application. These include end-to-end functional testing, Regression testing, Interface testing, Database testing, Performance testing, Business Continuity testing and Security testing. Test Automation Functional Regression Providing complete test coverage right from the Requirement stage to ensure reduced defect rates is essential. Starting with Business Requirement documents, development of test scope and end-to-end business scenarios to uncover critical defects in your existing system is crucial. Integration Services Provider Business Continuity Test approach should involve every assignment from a business user perspective to ensure the system satisfies all user requirements. Performance Security Database Cigniti proprietary and confidential. Not for public distribution 4

5 Integrated Trading Platform An approach Functional Differentiators Proven expertise in test strategy, planning and test execution techniques. Generating complex test data at different levels by simulating real-time business flows. An end-user focused approach. Identification of defects earlier in the development process. Efficient testing through the usage of best practices and best-of-breed tools. Superior test coverage. Development of repeatable test plans to reduce testing time. Reduction of testing cycles, leading to reduced overall testing costs. User Acceptance - Ensure that the product meets end-user functional requirements. Regression - Correction of product defects for each new release and ensuring that no new quality problems are introduced. Detailed test metrics at the end of each test cycle. Test Advisory Services (TAS) bring in High visibility in the organization s process from Inception to Delivery of solutions and helps you attain a higher level of Process Maturity. TAS leverages industry practices and the indigenously developed baselines for arriving at a best possible solution for a given business context or a Scenario. TAS define and implement some of the best practices like Defect Prevention at the earlier stages of the life cycle and strengthen Quantitative management of the projects through metric analysis and tracking mechanism and a detailed Root Cause Analysis. Interfaces: Validating Information exchange Integrated trading platform interacts and integrates with many external systems and it is really important to test the correctness of information exchanged (received and sent) with external systems. The main problem for a trading system is to take cognizance of and communicate with various messaging protocols from different systems and respond in accordance to their structure. There are many messaging protocols in the market used by financial institutions like FIX, FAST, and FpML etc. A typical connectivity diagram of a trading system with external systems where inbound and outbound message flow though different gateways and interfaces is shown below. The main challenge lies with the external feeds where the protocols may be different and the message types need to be tested thoroughly. Replicating real-time trading environment and test in such conditions is a difficult task since it requires absolute adherence to the proprietary protocols for testing purposes. To solve some of challenges in interface testing, it is important toselect the right simulators to replicate real-time testing environment. Selecting the right simulators to replicate real-time testing environment. Test all types of messages, message formats, fields and values by using simulators/by sending flat files and verifying in system logs and also in database. the connectivity as per connectivity policy. Validating failover and recovery conditions helps in business continuity. the message throttling rate will help in controlling the traffic. Validating session level messages like logon request, Heartbeats and logout will help in establishing, maintaining and disconnecting sessions. Thus, Interface testing requires a meticulous plan and robust assessments. Cigniti proprietary and confidential. Not for public distribution 5

6 Integrated Trading Platform An approach Database As the complexity of application increases the need of stronger and secure database emerges. In the same way, for trading applications with high frequency of transactions, necessity of fully featured DB Tool is essential. Data integrity and database integrity test within relational constrains, triggers and stored procedures techniques verify that data is being stored by the system in a manner where the data is not compromised by updating, restoration, or retrieval processing. This type of testing is intended to uncover design flaws that may result in data corruption, unauthorized data access, lack of data integrity across multiple tables, and lack of adequate transaction performance. The databases, data files, and the database or data file processes should be tested as a subsystem within the application. Hence it is important to ensure accuracy of implemented Business Rules within relational constrains, triggers and stored procedures. Performance A 1-millisecond advantage in trading applications can be worth $100 million a year to a major brokerage firm, by one estimate. It has become imperative that trading applications need to cope with these demands for reduced latency and have the ability to handle peak trade volumes. The following areas have to be tested as part of Performance testing across devices like Desktop, Mobile and Tablets. Reliability: Trading platforms are mission critical systems involving millions of trade transactions on a daily basis worth billions of dollars. The systems are expected to adhere to adhere to service levels on optimal performance and reliability, both of which need to be validated. Availability: With the advent of global integration of markets and increased economic activity all over the world, trading platforms have to adhere to strict availability of service level agreements. The systems need to operate optimally, 24/7 (365 days a year). Capacity: Tests are conducted to understand performance characteristics (response times and throughput [e.g. number of trades/second]) of trading platforms with increased user load or volumes. Load: Verify trading systems/platforms behavior under normal and peak load conditions. Endurance: Stress tests need to be designed to understand performance characteristics when systems are pushed to their limits. The system could be driven to its limits by increasing load, volume of data being processed, the amount of memory made available, computing capacity etc. Scalability: Tests are conducted to understand performance characteristics (response times and throughput [e.g. number of trades/second]) of trading platforms with increased user load or volumes. While all the determinants of performance are not in control of an enterprise, careful analysis of the technology and application stack that is within its control can help identify the performance bottlenecks and come up with recommendations for right infrastructure, configuration and tuning. Cigniti s performance analyzer is equipped with customized reports based on business specific parameters and engineering metrics. The tool publishes reports by correlating data from geographically distributed sources and generates static inferences based on correlation of parameters. The tool is designed to integrate with Load Runner, JMeter, WebLoad, And Silk Performer & RPT. The analyzer supports multiple test runs and generates reports per test in unattended execution mode. Cigniti proprietary and confidential. Not for public distribution 6

7 Integrated Trading Platform An approach Security Integrated trading platform needs to interact with external entities for live market feed and to communicate trading orders with different stock exchanges. Communication channel for such information flow should be well protected. Every component of the integrated trading platform will have different kinds of security threats. Web interface of portal application is accessed through public network and is exposed to various malicious activities or attacks. Therefore, it is important to have proper access control, authentication and auditing mechanisms implemented. Portal website exposed to end user should also undergo vulnerability assessment and penetration testing to identify weaknesses in the system. Infrastructure security controls are also required to protect the servers, networks, and various devices that are used to make the trading platform operational. Business Continuity Business continuity (BC) and disaster recovery (DR) plans are useless until you test them. Fortunately, many types of tests are possible, ranging from simple to very complex. The key to business continuity testing success is to incorporate testing as part of the overall business continuity/disaster recovery management process. But testing can be a major challenge for trading applications in case of migrations, adopting to new technologies and during fail over situations for all the Servers like Matching Engine, Trade Capturing, Login and Log out etc. Resilience: Test system resilience to failure and the ability to continue to provide service during failure & recovery. Robustness: Test standard operating procedures to ensure they are robust and comprehensive. Recovery time: Ensure recovery is with acceptable time scales and performance criteria. Areas to cover: Software (operating system, process and application), Hardware, Power Failure and Network. Key differentiators ITP demands the following specializationsin house proprietary testing tools that significantly add value and reduce testing efforts. Experienced Subject Matter Experts in Equities, Foreign Exchange, Derivatives, Commodities trading, clearing and settlement systems. Top level automation architects with extensive Test automation knowledge using leading market tools like HP (QC, QTP), Ratio nal (RFP, RPT) and MicroFocus (STP, SCTM) technologies as well as open-source technologies like Selenium etc. A Centre for Excellence consisting a good number of Certified Software professionals in CSTE, ISTQB, NSE, AHM250, AINS (Associate in General Insurance), LOMA etc. Reusable test repositories to enable reduced time-to-market and having reuse benefits. Conclusion Integrated Trading Platform is rapidly evolving and varying with new technologies and it is very important to have proper testing approach and best QA practices in order to have reliable systems in real time which in turn reduce financial, business and reputational losses. It is also important to conduct a post release review across the SDLC, work on the shortcomings and share the best QA practices for future use. Disclaimer This white paper is issued for information only. Cigniti declines all responsibility for any errors and any loss or damage resulting from use of the contents of this White Paper. Cigniti also declines responsibility for any infringement of any third party's Intellectual Property Rights but will be pleased to acknowledge any IPR and correct any infringement of which it is advised. Cigniti proprietary and confidential. Not for public distribution 7

8 Integrated Trading Platform An approach About the White Paper: At Cigniti, research and development is an endeavor in pursuit of excellence in Software. This white paper is an outcome of Cigniti s mission to build a better world by helping build better software. The content of this white paper is an incorporation of insights from the BFSI Center of Excellence and career testers with extensive experience in ITP. For more details write to [email protected] About Cigniti Cigniti Technologies is the World s 3rd largest Independent Software Services Company, headquartered in Dallas, TX. Cigniti s test offerings include TCoE, Enterprise Mobility, on Cloud, Big Data, Functional, Automation, Security and Performance services. Over the last 15 years, Cigniti has helped Enterprises and ISVs across verticals build quality software while improving time to market and reducing cost of quality. Cigniti has translated its R&D into Cigniti SMART Tools that accelerate testing and help improve the quality of services delivered to clients. Headquarters Cigniti Inc. 433 E Las Colinas Blvd, # 1240, Irving, TX Phone: Fax: /0644 Global Delivery Center 6th Floor, ORION Block, The V (Ascendas) Plot #17 Software Units Layout Madhapur, Hyderabad Phone: Fax: