Seamless Cloud Migration to AWS
Reducing hosting costs by 30% while improving security posture, maintainability and resilience
Cloud
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Migrating to the Cloud
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Managing the Cloud
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DevOps & Infrastructure
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IT & Technology
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The Challenge
Our client, a technology company, was running a software-as-a-service product from a virtual network of 6 Windows servers, had lost confidence in their existing hosting supplier after only a year of poor service.
The supplier had over-promised and under-delivered.
Key Pain Points
Delayed and protracted implementation
What was sold as a quick, fully-managed migration took far longer and required significant involvement from our client's team.
Broken partnership promises
Despite commitments to proactive partnership, cost optimization, and growth planning, costs were rising with minimal optimization and almost no contact from their account manager.
Clunky support processes
Limited self-service capability, particularly around firewall management, meant configuration changes were slower than their previous hosting arrangement.
Outdated management practices
The supplier's "point and click" configuration approach meant no infrastructure-as-code, limited audit trails, and poor documentation.
Overpriced and ineffective disaster recovery
25-30% of their budget was spent on a gold-plated solution that only addressed "environment down" failures, while failing to protect against more common scenarios like single server failures or ransomware attacks.
The client also felt there were gaps around their security posture, including managing vulnerabilities and threats, and sought a more modern solution.
They needed a partner who could deliver a modern, secure, maintainable solution with improved resilience - and improve value for money without compromising quality.
The Solution
Our approach balanced technical excellence with practical partnership. We recognized that the client's immediate need was stability and confidence - not a risky re-architecture project. By using proven AWS migration tools and implementing modern DevOps practices, we could deliver a secure, well-documented environment that gave the client control and visibility from day one.
Implementation Highlights
Respecting stability while modernizing infrastructure
The client was clear that the server environment itself was working for them, and they didn't wish to risk its stability in the short term. This guided our approach to "lift and shift" to AWS EC2, rather than exploring serverless computing, AWS native services or application redesign.
Automated migration with built-in confidence
We planned and delivered an initial migration using AWS's highly automated Application Migration Service (AWS MGN) to "lift and shift" the client's application server workloads into AWS EC2 virtual servers. This allowed us to set up a test environment relatively quickly and cheaply, allowing the client to test drive the new environment prior to migration. This built confidence in advance of the final cutover.
Multi-tier disaster recovery without the gold plating
We designed and implemented a cloud-native disaster recovery strategy that addressed the client's resilience concerns without the expense of their previous over-engineered solution:
AWS MGN to replicate the entire environment into a different region
AWS Backup to allow individual servers to be restored
SQL Server backup to AWS S3 to guarantee data integrity in a ransomware scenario
This addressed the client's resilience concerns and recovery time objectives without the expense of a gold-plated hot swap solution.
Infrastructure as Code for auditability and control
We imported the AWS configuration into Terraform Infrastructure-as-Code, providing a clear, version-controlled record of how the environment is configured. We implemented drift detection to ensure unauthorized changes can be easily identified, and developed deployment pipelines in Azure DevOps with documented workflows the client could use when updating their infrastructure.
Enhanced security posture
We implemented AWS Inspector and AWS GuardDuty to continuously detect vulnerabilities and intrusion attempts, integrating these tools with Azure DevOps Boards to provide a clear audit trail of issues identified and actions taken.
The Impact
The migration delivered immediate improvements across cost, security, and operational capability.
Our client gained a modern, well-documented infrastructure they could manage confidently, with robust disaster recovery that actually addressed real-world failure scenarios. Most importantly, they now had a technology partner who delivered on their promises.
The migration finished a week ahead of schedule, and now that the client has a stable foundation, they can reinvest the cost savings into application architecture and modernization, setting them up for future growth.
Key Outcomes
30% reduction in hosting costs - Achieved through right-sizing infrastructure, eliminating gold-plated disaster recovery, and leveraging AWS's pay-as-you-go pricing model
Enhanced security posture - Continuous vulnerability scanning and threat detection through AWS Inspector and GuardDuty, with clear audit trails integrated into their existing workflow tools
Faster configuration changes - Infrastructure-as-Code eliminated the bottleneck of relying on a supplier's support team for firewall and configuration changes
Comprehensive disaster recovery - Multi-tier backup strategy protecting against single server failures, ransomware attacks, and regional outages - covering real risks rather than theoretical scenarios
Full infrastructure visibility - Terraform configuration provided clear documentation and drift detection, replacing the previous supplier's undocumented "point and click" approach, and allowing the client to evidence their security and compliance
Client empowerment - Documented workflows and DevOps pipelines gave the client the tools and confidence to manage their own infrastructure changes
Zero-downtime migration - Thorough testing environment and automated migration tools meant a seamless cutover with no disruption to their SaaS customers
Modern cloud infrastructure with security, resilience and control built in from day one.
Key Facts
- Industry: Technology (SaaS)
- Client Team Size: 12
- Project Duration: 2 months
- Engagement Model: Time and Materials
- Outcome: Stable, cloud architecture with increased security, resilience and maintainability at a lower cost
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