Level 2 Operations has the task to ensure the daily operation of applications in live, test, training and developer environment.

Operators posess general knowledge of informatics and the clients’ company environments (regulations, basic architecture, etc.) in particular, supplemented by some deeper knowledge of the application and the techniques it uses – yet they do not reach  experts’ or developers’ level of expertise.

Capsys provides this service mostly through remote access (VPN) from Capsys’ premises (a separate operators’ room) or, on-site when necessary, using either own hardware or that provided by the client.

The default language of the service is Hungarian, yet it may be English or another language chosen by the client.

The service is available at different service levels up to  24/7.

There is daytime operations period (normally between 08:00 – 17:00 hours on workdays) and standby period (availability minus the daytime operations period), when normally only error type incidents are handled.

Some of the systems currently operated by Capsys:

Some example of the functionality of maintained and supported systems:

-          Banking transaction back-office and front-office systmes

-          Bankcard transaction and fraud systems

-          POS transacting systems

-          Sales support systems

-          Workflow systmes

OS

-          Sun Solaris (10)

-          Windows

-          AIX

Database

-          IBM Informix 9, 10

-          Oracle 8, 9i, 10g

-          IBM Domino Server 6, 7

Client

-          WEB based (CGI, Java, PHP, IBM WAS, SunOne)

-          Delphi

-          4GL

-          MAGIC

Operative advantages:

•   Single-point communication
•  Uniform operation and reporting
•  Consistency and business continuity
•  Risk sharing
•  Vertical integration
• Separated Level One, Level Two, and Level Three support
• Controlled environment in line with the bank’s security requirements (access control, visibility, etc.) 
•  Focus on core activity

Financial advantages:

•  Increasing economy of scale
•  Increasing efficiency
•  IT allocated to cost centers
•  Decreasing overhead and infrastructure requirement

Quality advantages:

•  Distribution of peak burden and bottleneck risk
•   Availability guaranteed in Service Level Agreements
•   Transparency, clear responsibility
•  Uniform quality assurance

This service usually entails the following activities:

• System maintenance (daily-weekly-monthly etc. routine tasks)
• Database Administrator tasks
• Operating the hardware and operational system
• Maintenance of IT system parameters
• Supervising the operation of interfaces
• Starting software runs (manual startup or crontab, etc. adjustment)
• System updates (installing service packs, etc.)
• Handling of version changes (installing application components, co-ordinating copying)
• Archiving and publishing ChangeLogs (handling development documentation)
• IT testing tasks (UAT, etc.)
• System monitoring (for performance, logs, etc.)
• Revealing problems in system operation, solving them on the basis of pre-defined checklists, data gathering, incident handling
• Maintaining user database (user access, deletion, authorization, etc.)
• Notifying users
• Documenting system operational tasks, making reports
• Co-operating with related areas (other IT areas: hardware, basic software, DBAs, etc.)
• Serving Level 1 HelpDesk (through the ticketing system)
• Escalation to Level 3 Support or other, third party support