CloudStraigh migrates and transforms KM Cube’s core application on AWS.
February 17, 2023
CloudStraigh migrates and modernizes a Financial and Accounting firm’s Windows Server core application on AWS.
The client had been using a local Cloud provider for hosting their main application. They have been experiencing severe issues with performance and server availability. They wanted to migrate seamlessly to a new Cloud provider and increase resilience, availability, and performance in a highly secure and scalable way.
The client is offering Financial Management and Accounting services to a wide range of Greek enterprises, ranging from large companies to SMEs and freelancers.
Due to the nature of the business, the company is facing regulatory tight deadlines with very high demand – especially on month and year-end – and high availability, during such seasons, is of critical importance.
The company relies mainly on several 3rd party Software developed for Accounting Offices, Payroll, and other needs.
The Challenge
The company was operating in a hybrid environment with its main infrastructure hosted on a local Cloud provider. However, they were experiencing frequent failures and low availability, and they wanted to move to a more resilient and highly available architecture.
As their operations are critical for their clients, they must meet regulatory requirements and deadlines. Hence, security, resilience, and availability are of paramount importance. The company applied the highest standards in these areas and required a solid solution.
The Solution
CloudStraight reviewed the existing systems and processes along with business and regulatory requirements and successfully migrated and modernized relevant workloads.
AWS Application Migration Service (MGN) was used for the initial migration. The application was decoupled, and the database tier was moved to separate servers (internal) for maximum security.
Security / Monitoring / Management
Security best practices as defined in the Security Pillar of AWS Well Architected Framework were followed. Data is protected both in transit and at rest (SSL / KMS), while users are accessing the Cloud infrastructure from their on-premises environment through a VPN connection.
Access and network are protected at all layers (IAM / Security Groups / NACLs) using the least privilege principle while secrets are protected through SSM parameters and Secrets Manager.
Detailed monitoring and logging have been also implemented using CloudWatch, CloudTrail and Config with automated incident response, alerting and remediation.
AWS Systems Manager was leveraged for gaining visibility and control of the complete infrastructure on AWS, providing a unified user interface for viewing operational data from multiple AWS services and automating operational tasks across AWS resources.
The architecture is scalable and highly available using multi-AZ EC2 instances with autoscaling and ALB.
Benefits
The Client has minimized operational overhead for managing its IT workloads, generating significant cost savings.
Their cloud infrastructure is based on the latest AWS technology and services with high resilience, scalability and security.
Operational tasks are automated as well as monitoring, incident detection, alerting, incident response, and remediation.
About the Client
The company offers financial management and Accounting Services to enterprises and individuals in Greece.
Its client base ranges from large enterprises to SMEs, personal companies, and freelancers
The company’s team of experienced professionals provides Financial guidance and accounting services, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements.
