Description of the situation
The company Prvá stavebná sporiteľňa, a.s. uses the OpenText Content Suite Platform DMS solution (hereinafter only the “CSP”) as a central system for documents management and processing within various departments of the company. Because the bank emphasizes the use of secure solutions, it decided to upgrade to a newer version.
Customer presentation
Prvá stavebná sporiteľňa, a.s. (“PSS”) is the largest and oldest building society in Slovakia, which provides financial services focused on housing. It was established in 1992 as the first entity in the field of building savings in the former Czechoslovakia. Since then, it has earned the trust of more than 1.8 million clients who use its products and services. PSS offers a wide range of financial solutions for housing, including building savings, mortgage loans, renovation loans, loans for the purchase of real estate or investment in real estate. PSS is also the only building society in Slovakia that has its own network of branches and financial advisors throughout the country. PSS is governed by the values of expertise, reliability, innovativeness, and client satisfaction. It aims to help people achieve their dreams of a better home and improve the quality of life in the community.
The reasons that led the customer to upgrade their existing DMS solution:
- One of the reasons was the acceptance of the SW manufacturer’s recommendation to replace some components of the solution with new ones free of charge.
- Upgrading the solution will also allow future utilization of new features and capabilities that OpenText offers in its updated products, such as better integration with other systems, enhanced workflow functionality, advanced document search and analysis, or increased data protection.
Aim and description of the project
The aim of the project was to upgrade the environment to product version 23.2 for the following components:
- OpenText Archive Center
- OpenText Content Server
- OpenText OTDS
- OpenText System Center
- OpenText Intelligent Viewing (replacing Brava + Blazon products)
- OpenText Document Pipeline
- IXTENT Content Scanner
- IXTENT Smart Document Flow
- IXTENT Job for validation with CBS
The upgrade was performed gradually in the DEV, TEST, and PROD environments. The upgrade was performed on the same virtual servers, where Windows operating systems were also upgraded to the latest versions before the upgrade of the OpenText products. Some virtual servers have been moved to newer and more powerful HW that has been recently purchased.
The upgrade was performed using the System Center application. It was necessary to create a Slovak language package within the Content Server and then install it. During the project, of course, interim findings were addressed and some new things had to be translated. Furthermore, the document display was updated to use the new Intelligent Viewing application, which replaces the previous Brava application.
Figure 1: Intelligent Viewing Viewer
As part of the OTDS upgrade, it was necessary to install the Tomcat application and configure it, install the OTDS application and create a new MS SQL database.
As part of the project, a new Intelligent Viewing component was installed to replace Brava and Blazon. These components are no longer supported by OpenText. Features and user interface may vary.
For the Document Pipeline part, the version of the basic OpenText Document Pipeline product (framework) has been upgraded to the scope of the original implementation. In addition, the vendor-developed components were upgraded from Java 8 to Java 11 within the scope of the original implementation of the integration scenarios.
In the Content Scanner section, the version of ClamAV antivirus has been upgraded to the latest LTS version (currently 1.0.1) and regular updates of the virus database have been set to once a day.
The validation job has also been upgraded from Java 8 to Java 11. In addition to modernizing the solution, the upgrade brings the replacement of Oracle JDK8, which is licensed under Oracle’s paid production use license, with OpenJDK11, which is licensed under the standard GPL.
Conclusion
IXTENT successfully guided the customer through the overall solution upgrade. The system is functional and the way of work users are accustomed to has not changed for them. The system is currently supported by the manufacturer until 2028.
We would like to highlight very good cooperation with PSS. All details and new facts in the project were always communicated together and an optimal solution was found.
Statement of Prvá stavebná sporiteľňa, a.s.
On behalf of PSS, we would like to thank for the professional approach of the contractor in managing the whole project, designing the upgrade process and solving all problems that occurred during the implementation of the upgrade on the DEV, TEST, and PROD environments.
We are a financial institution, so the upgrade had to take place with minimal impact on the operation of the banking systems. The DMS is one of the backbone systems integrated into other banking systems. The solution design, both the overall upgrade and the troubleshooting, was a difficult logistical problem requiring perfect communication from both sides.
There were quite a few problems, some of which caught both sides by surprise. IXTENT’s willing approach to analyze the problem even “at midnight” and to invite and consult with other experts led to new solutions and we thus achieved the desired goal.
One of the required upgrade success criteria was to maintain the system response times.
IXTENT has developed a tool to measure the performance. During the upgrade, the system response was tested several times and a solution was sought to speed up and optimize the processes.
We are pleased to note that after the upgrade, the system provides faster responses when searching and opening documents, which significantly contributes to better user experience.
Working with annotations in Intelligent Viewing has been very well received by PSS users; the solution is simpler, clearer and more user-friendly than in the original Brava.