LZ MOBILIZED OCTOBER 02, 2023
Customer overview
The Customer is a state-of-the-art envelope supplier with 11 factories spread across the United States of America. With over a hundred years of history in the business, they understood the need for modernization to stay relevant in ever-changing markets.
The challenge
The Customer's IT organization faced a tight timeline to initiate and complete the migration of their existing applications to the cloud. Recognizing the criticality of this transformation on their next year of business, they set a short-term objective to complete the migration of applications within the final three weeks of the year. This timeframe aligned with year-end goals and was a strategic window that allowed for a focused and expedited migration process, minimizing the impact on ongoing operations. The urgency of this migration underscored their commitment to staying ahead in the digital landscape and harnessing the scalability, flexibility, and efficiency that cloud platforms offer.
The solution
We initiated the Customer's journey by on-boarding them to an AWS Control Tower environment, meticulously managed by our Cloud Transitional Services team in seamless collaboration with Amazon Managed Services. In the foundational layers of the Control Tower architecture, a dedicated application account was strategically deployed, purpose-built to host both application and file servers. Leveraging the efficiency of AWS Snowball, a robust data transfer mechanism, we seamlessly migrated data to S3 volumes, which were subsequently harmonized with the requisite file servers. To fortify the operational landscape, a Managed AD (Active Directory) domain was strategically deployed in the cloud. This pivotal move empowered the establishment of controlled authentication protocols within the cloud-based servers and extended its functionality to Workspaces, ensuring a secure and seamlessly integrated user experience.
Adding a layer of governance, Service Control Policies were deployed to establish precise boundaries for resource usage and deployment. This strategic implementation not only upheld stringent cost controls but also fostered an environment of infrastructure efficiency. AWS Config rules were thoughtfully defined and configured to execute comprehensive drift detection and notification mechanisms, ensuring that any variances from the established configurations were promptly identified and addressed. To streamline this oversight process, these rules were consolidated into an AWS Organization-wide aggregator, hosted within the environment. This not only facilitated centralized management but also provided a holistic perspective of the entire AWS Organization's compliance status. An integral component of this implementation was a Standardized Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) Model. This was a pivotal framework that aligned diverse roles, business unit requirements, and prevailing security standards. The standardized approach ensured a secure operational landscape and streamlined and efficient access management- minimizing the risk associated with unauthorized access. In essence, this multifaceted deployment within the AWS Control Tower framework not only ensured a seamless and secure migration but also laid the groundwork for an efficient, controlled, and compliant operational ecosystem for the Customer. The Landing Zone was mobilized on October 02, 2023.
The benefits
The Customer gained a robust, highly-available, and meticulously optimized cloud infrastructure. This enhanced environment had automated scalability and elasticity providing an agile and responsive ecosystem. The strategic partnership with CDW Managed Services and AWS Managed Services continues to play a transformative role in the Customer's journey. This collaborative synergy empowered them to pivot their focus on core business functions, unburdened by the intricacies of infrastructure management. The outcome was consistent uptime- exceeding the 99% threshold. Simultaneously, this holistic approach contributed to a discernible reduction in the overall cost of ownership, underlining the efficiency gains and cost-effectiveness inherent in this re-imagined cloud infrastructure.
