Key Takeaways

  • Effectual helped a federal government client extend their on-premises data center into AWS and rearchitect applications for a hybrid cloud environment.
  • Automation was central to the engagement, from AWS CloudFormation templates for DevOps to fully automated security response triggers.
  • Amazon CloudWatch was configured to detect unauthorized configuration changes, automatically revert them, and alert security teams in real time.
  • The new AWS environment combined EC2 and RDS infrastructure with AWS Config and CloudTrail for governance and auditability.
  • Reusable infrastructure templates significantly reduced the time needed to build new environment components going forward.

Effectual led a Federal Government client in their journey from on-premises to AWS by extending their data center into the cloud and rearchitecting their applications.

Effectual provided guidance in the following areas

  • Implementing Automation for the client.
  • Creating a new AWS infrastructure and environment.
  • Updating and retooling current applications.
  • Building the solution as a receiver and retooling specific applications to function in the new environment.
  • Interpreting and providing additional information and understanding of features that are new and being developed as it pertains to their issues.

Our Team Leveraged the following technologies

  • AWS CloudFormation templates were created for DevOps
  • Organizations and AWS Config for management of the system
  • AWS CloudTrail and Amazon CloudWatch were utilized for automating security recommendations
  • Amazon CloudWatch was programmed to alert the client if changes were made in their system. The response would trigger the system to return to original configurations and alert security to these changes.
  • AWS infrastructure resources, EC2 instances and RDS database infrastructures

The Benefits

Migration to the Cloud

We rebuilt client applications in the AWS Cloud to connect to their on-premises data. This made their applications more accessible by all and created a working hybrid environment for their data.

Security Improvements

We deployed AWS infrastructure services, including Amazon CloudWatch to monitor resources and trigger responses to changes in the environment.

Management of Resources

The services in AWS monitor both on-premises and AWS cloud environments. The time to build components in the environment was significantly reduced and instances were saved as a template for repeatability.

Frequently Asked Questions

What federal government challenge did Effectual help solve?

A federal government client needed to move from on-premises infrastructure to AWS while rearchitecting existing applications to work in the new hybrid environment.

How did Effectual automate security for this client?

By using AWS CloudTrail and Amazon CloudWatch to automatically detect unauthorized system changes, trigger a rollback to the original configuration, and alert security teams.

What AWS services were used in this migration?

AWS CloudFormation for DevOps automation, AWS Config for governance, CloudTrail and CloudWatch for monitoring and security, and EC2/RDS for compute and database infrastructure.

Did the client end up with a fully cloud-based environment?

No, the result was a working hybrid environment connecting rebuilt AWS-based applications to the client's existing on-premises data.

What operational benefit did the client see beyond security?

Faster environment builds, since AWS infrastructure components were saved as reusable templates that reduced the time needed to stand up new resources.