SHI helps a leader in packaging solutions reduce deployment times by 40%

The customer gained real-time insights and improved security with SHI and AWS.

Challenge:

A global leader in printing and packaging solutions faced significant challenges in modernizing its security and monitoring frameworks. To protect its digital assets, they needed a robust security framework, which involved setting up a dedicated security account and logging account within AWS Control Tower. This setup was essential for managing and monitoring security services effectively and ensuring compliance with industry regulations.

They also required a well-defined account structure to segregate duties and enhance security management, including the creation of dedicated accounts for different business functions and security domains. To ensure operational excellence, the customer also needed a comprehensive monitoring solution to track the health of its AWS workloads, detect issues early, and respond promptly. Without addressing these challenges, they risked inefficiencies in managing security incidents, prolonged downtimes, and potential security breaches that could compromise their operations and client trust.

Solution:

As an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner, SHI provided the customer with a comprehensive solution to address these challenges, leveraging AWS best practices and cutting-edge technologies to enhance their security and monitoring systems.

The process began with a thorough assessment of the customer’s existing environment to define the requirements for AWS Control Tower deployment. This included planning the organizational units (OUs) and creating a landing zone. AWS Control Tower was then set up to automate the establishment of a secure, multi-account AWS environment. Key components included setting up a dedicated security account to house AWS native security services like AWS GuardDuty, AWS Security Hub, and AWS IAM Access Analyzer, and a dedicated logging account to centralize all AWS CloudTrail logs, AWS Config logs, and VPC Flow Logs. This configuration ensured that logs were protected and easily accessible for auditing and compliance purposes. The implementation of AWS Control Tower established a multi-account structure with predefined guardrails to enforce security policies and compliance standards.

SHI designed a comprehensive account structure to segregate duties and improve security, creating separate accounts for different business functions and security domains. A security account was used for deploying and managing security services and conducting security operations, while a logging account centralized logging to ensure all logs were aggregated in one place for better monitoring and incident response. This multi-account strategy, managed using AWS Organizations, allowed for the consolidation of billing and security policies while defining roles and responsibilities within each account to enhance security.

SHI collaborated with the customer to define KPIs for workload health, focusing on metrics such as CPU usage, memory utilization, and application response time. AWS CloudWatch and integrated third-party tools were deployed for real-time monitoring of the customer’s AWS environment. Centralized logging with Amazon CloudWatch Logs was set up to capture application logs and errors, and alert thresholds were established using Amazon CloudWatch Alarms to ensure timely detection and response to operational events. CloudWatch dashboards were configured to provide a comprehensive view of the customer’s AWS environment, tracking critical metrics and performance indicators, and automated alerts were set up to notify the operations team of any issues, enabling proactive management and rapid resolution.

Outcome:

The implementation led to significant improvements in operational efficiency, security, and disaster resilience. Automated deployment processes minimized manual intervention, reducing the risk of errors and ensuring consistent infrastructure setups. The CloudWatch monitoring solution enabled seamless integration and monitoring of updates, accelerating operational cycles. Establishing dedicated security and logging accounts enhanced the overall security framework, providing clear segregation of duties and better protection of digital assets. Real-time insights into operational performance allowed for proactive management and quicker resolution of issues. Additionally, defined RTO and RPO targets, along with regular disaster recovery drills, ensured that the customer could quickly recover from incidents, minimizing downtime and data loss. Deployment times were reduced by 40% due to automated processes, showcasing the efficiency and effectiveness of the implemented solutions.