Finance
Automating Cloud Infrastructure for Improved Efficiency and Security
Focus Areas
Cloud Infrastructure
Digital Transformation
Automation
Business Problem
A financial services company, manually managing its cloud infrastructure, was struggling with security risks and operational issues. The existing processes for provisioning cloud resources were slow, inconsistent, increased operational costs, and delayed the deployment of crucial infrastructure. Inconsistent manual configurations also introduced potential security risks and endangered compliance and trust.
Key challenges:
- Manual Provisioning: The manual setup and provisioning of the AWS-managed cloud infrastructure led to delays in resource launches and higher costs due to over-provisioned environments. It also increased the risk of human error and weakened the infrastructure’s reliability.
- Security Flaws: The lack of standardized provisioning raised the possibility of a security lapse or non-compliance with financial regulations, and occasionally also led to crucial security controls being disregarded or enforced inconsistently.
- Growing Customer Demand: The manual method was slow, labor-intensive, prone to mistakes, and caused expensive delays in the deployment of resources. This made it more difficult to meet the rising demand from customers.
- Compliance and Governance: The lack of a standard for infrastructure provisioning meant the client had to carry out manual reviews to meet industry standards for compliance and governance. These were time-consuming and prone to human error.
The Approach
Terraform and AWS CloudFormation were used to implement an Infrastructure-as-code (IaC) strategy. This would standardize the provisioning process, enable faster and more efficient resource management across AWS environments, and improve security by incorporating controls straight into the infrastructure.
Key components of the solution:
Discovery and Requirements Gathering: Following a thorough evaluation of the client’s existing infrastructure and provisioning processes as well as through collaborative discussions with the client’s internal IT and Security teams, Curate’s consultants chose to focus on the following crucial elements:
Automating the cloud infrastructure provisioning to reduce manual errors and enhance efficiency.
Implementing the security controls directly in the infrastructure provisioning to mitigate risks.
Standardizing the infrastructure across all environments (development, testing, and production).
Ensuring compliance with financial industry regulations such as PCI-DSS and SOC 2.
- Implementing IaC with Terraform and AWS CloudFormation:
Terraform would automate the provisioning of cloud resources, including EC2 instances, RDS databases, S3 buckets, and VPC configurations. To ensure that each environment was provisioned identically yet securely, Curate’s consultants developed Terraform scripts that defined each cloud resource.
AWS CloudFormation templates were utilized to automate and standardize the creation and management of infrastructure for AWS-native resources. This made it possible for the client to swiftly provision and deploy resources while keeping all AWS accounts consistent.
Version-controlled infrastructure: The Curate team ensured that the client would be able to track changes and audit configurations by storing all Terraform and CloudFormation templates in version control using Git. This decreased the risk of misconfigurations and errors and allowed the client to roll back to previous versions if needed.
- Automating Security with Embedded Controls: Curate’s team integrated the security controls directly into the infrastructure provisioning procedure.
Our consultants automated security policies and embedded security best practices into the Terraform and CloudFormation templates by enforcing IAM roles, multi-factor authentication for users, VPC security groups, and encryption for all data at rest using AWS KMS.
Infrastructure templates included pre-configured VPCs with subnets, route tables, and network access rules to lower the risk of illegal access and breaches.
AWS CloudTrail and Config were integrated to track infrastructure modifications and ensure compliance with regulatory standards. Automated alerts were set up to notify the security team.
- Automating Resource Management: CI/CD Pipelines using Jenkins and GitLab CI were set up. These needed less time to make updates or provision new resources, thus streamlining and automating the deployment of infrastructure changes.
The CI/CD pipelines automatically deployed Terraform and CloudFormation templates when the version-controlled codebase was changed. This enabled the client to scale resources or make infrastructure changes quickly and efficiently.
To ensure thorough testing before deployment, the pipelines included automated testing and validation steps. This also lowered the risk of configuration errors or security breaches during updates.
- Monitoring and Continuous Improvement: AWS CloudWatch was utilized for performance monitoring and AWS GuardDuty for security monitoring as part of a thorough monitoring and optimization strategy.
Real-time updates, and performance and health monitoring of the cloud infrastructure would be provided via AWS CloudWatch, aiding in resource optimization and early problem detection.
AWS GuardDuty would continuously monitor for security threats and gaps and trigger alerts for immediate investigation.
- Training and Change Management: Curate’s consultants provided a detailed change management plan as well as comprehensive hands-on training to the client’s internal teams so they could manage the new infrastructure processes. The training covered:
Managing and deploying infrastructure using Terraform and AWS CloudFormation.
Best practices for embedding security controls in infrastructure code.
Monitoring and maintaining compliance using AWS Config and CloudTrail.
Using CI/CD pipelines for infrastructure deployments.
Continuous optimization and support: To ensure that the infrastructure remained safe, scalable, and economical after deployment, our team frequently supported the client through ongoing optimization services. This included performance evaluations, suggestions for additional optimization, and routine audits of the infrastructure code.
Business Outcomes
The transition from Waterfall to Agile, led by Curate Consulting, resulted in transformative improvements for the healthcare provider:
Faster Provisioning of Resources
The automated infrastructure provisioning process cut the deployment time by half. Now, the client could quickly respond to business needs by scaling existing environments or spinning up new ones in a matter of minutes.
Improved Security
The client observed a 40% decrease in security incidents resulting from misconfigurations when security measures were directly incorporated into the infrastructure code. The client also stayed compliant with industry standards thanks to automated compliance monitoring.
Reduced Operating Costs
The client saw a 25% reduction in operating costs as a result of automating cloud resource provisioning and optimizing resource usage.
Sample KPIs
Here’s a quick summary of the kinds of KPI’s and goals teams were working towards**:
| Metric | Before | After | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to provision new resources | 1 week | 1 hour | 50% reduction |
| Operational costs (cloud infrastructure) | $400,000/year | $300,000/year | 25% reduction |
| Security incidents (misconfigurations) | 15/year | 9/year | 40% reduction |
| Resource scaling time | 2 days | 30 minutes | 90% improvement |
| Infrastructure downtime (provisioning errors) | 20 hours/year | 14 hours/year | 30% reduction |
**Disclaimer: The set of KPI’s are for illustration only and do not reference any specific client data or actual results – they have been modified and anonymized to protect confidentiality and avoid disclosing client data.
Customer Value
Curate Consulting’s expertise in Agile methodologies not only improved operational efficiency but also enhanced the healthcare provider’s ability to serve their patients more effectively:
Improved scalability
Terraform and AWS CloudFormation enabled the client’s infrastructure to be fully scalable and handle the increased demand for services without compromising performance or security.
Increased reliability
Customers received improved service thanks to a 30% reduction in downtime brought on by infrastructure provisioning errors, and enhanced reliability due to the reduced risk of human errors in the process.
Conclusion
Curate partnered with the financial services company and automated their cloud infrastructure using AWS CloudFormation, Terraform, and CI/CD pipelines. Working closely with the client’s teams, Curate’s consultants standardized the provisioning process and implemented security controls into the infrastructure code. The solution allowed for faster provisioning, and enhanced service reliability and compliance while reducing operational costs, improving security, and scaling resources more efficiently.
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