Chapter 8: Technology Management

Question 1

What is the Head of IT sometimes known as?

Answer 1

CTO - Chief Technology Officer
CIO - Chief Information Officer

Question 2

Who is the head of Production Support?

Answer 2

Reporting into CIO/CTO, responsible for server and desktop facilities

Question 3

What is and what is the role of a DBA?
Who do they report to?

Answer 3

Database administrators, manage database, SQL, back-ups
Report to head of Production Support

Question 4

Who do help-desk analysts report to?

Answer 4

Head of Production Support

Question 5

What is the Head of Development and Implementation and who reports into them (3) and who do they report into?

Answer 5

Reports into CIO
Responsible for commissioning new applications internal and external

Report into Head of Development and Implementation
Business analysts
Application designers
Programmers

Question 6

What is the Head of Testing? What are they responsible for? Who reports into them

Answer 6

Reports into CIO
Responsible for testing new software
Implementing change control procedures
Test analysts report into them

Question 7

What is the Head of Change and who reports into them (2) and who do they report into?

Answer 7

Reports to the CIO and can report into COO
Responsible for managing major change programs and projects
Run matrix teams, staff from multiple areas

Report into Head of Change
Programme managers
Project managers

Question 8

What is the Head of Information Security (or Chief Information Security Office (CISO))
What regulation do they need to be aware of?

Answer 8

Reports to CIO
Responsible for security of computing services in the firm
Must know GDPR, previously Data Protection Act (DPA 1998)

Question 9

What is a thin and fat client?

Answer 9

Thin client - web based interaction
Fat client - application based interaction

Question 10

What is the Application sometimes known as?

Answer 10

Logic engine or Business rules
validate a trade, create a customer, obtain a customer’s details

Question 11

What is the Middleware/Real-Time Messaging Layer?

Answer 11

Software that distribute and obtain real-time data to and from other parties
internally & externally
matching updates

Question 12

What is the most common type of database?

Answer 12

relational database

Question 13

How do relational databases work?

Answer 13

Contain a number of tables and relationships between them.
E.g. customers, holdings, and trades
Each one will have a table
relationships will determine how these are linked.
Each trade must have a holding, each holding must have a customer etc

Question 14

What kind of databases are used for massive data sets?

Answer 14

OODBs, Object Oriented Databases

Question 15

What is the most common method used to interface with regional databases?

Answer 15

SQL

Question 16

What does SQL stand for?

Answer 16

Structured Query Language
There are SQL statements to obtain, insert, update and delete rows from tables – as well as creating, deleting and altering tables and columns

Question 17

What are some software products that allow non-technical users to develop reports over databases?

Answer 17

ORACLE, IBM’s DB2, Sybase (SAP), Microsoft’s SQLServer and the open-source product MySQL (ORACLE)

Question 18

What is the flow for creating a customer using SQL?

Answer 18

Customer inputs details
Application component validates the data
If all valid, applications with pass data to Database where a row will be added to the relevant tables
Application can pass data to Middleware component that can send email to customer

Question 19

What is a distributed system?

Answer 19

Hardware that is connected by some form of transmission.

Question 21

What are the problems with distributed systems?

Answer 21

Keeping all systems sychronised
Predicting performance
Limiting risks

Question 22

What is data replication?

Answer 22

Sharing information to ensure consistency across software or hardware.

Question 23

What two categories can the governance of risk management in IT be divided into?

Answer 23

maintaining ‘business as usual’ activities
introducing business change

Question 24

What is benefits realisation?

Answer 24

benefits of a project must be documented and quantified and measured

Question 25

What is form grabbing?

Answer 25

Intercepts data and collects it

Question 26

What is a Botnet?

Answer 26

Network of computers controlled by cybercriminals using trojan or malware

Question 27

What does a help desk need to function?

Answer 27

Users, Application info, Hardware (servers)

Question 28

What is the “follow-the-sun” model?

Answer 28

Each location is supported by a help desk in the same timezone

Question 29

What is a SLA?

Answer 29

Service Level Agreement - agree to level of service
Backed by KPIs

Question 30

What is SLM?

Answer 30

Service Level Management

Question 31

What are the 4 levels of support?

Answer 31

1 - Help Desk, admin
2 - Analyst, resolve
3 - Specialist, resolve further
4 - Management

Question 32

What is a BCP?

Answer 32

Business Continuity Plan
Ensure recovery from an emergency

Question 33

What is DR?

Answer 33

Disaster recovery
Regaining access to data and hard/software

Question 34

Who is concerned about operational resilience?

Answer 34

Regulators - BoE, FCA, PRA

Question 35

What is Top Management Commitment?

Answer 35

Top management supporting disaster recovery

Question 36

What are VCSs?

Answer 36

Version Control Systems
Applications that manage multiple revisions of the same unit of information.
Can “roll-back”, audit trails etc

Question 37

When are software changes not made?

Answer 37

Last 4 weeks of year, last week of month

Question 38

What is Technology Risk?

Answer 38

Complexity that creates business risk
Costly to run/maintain
Challenging to make changes

Question 39

How can Tech Risk be mitigated?

Answer 39

App management
BCP and DRs
Chnage control