A leading Canadian communications and media company partnered with HCLTech to migrate and consolidate key applications onto AWS. This initiative addressed deployment inconsistencies, security gaps and inefficient governance across multiple AWS accounts. By centralizing its environment into a unified account structure, the company significantly improved deployment speed, security and operational efficiency.
The Challenge
- Inconsistent deployments: Applications were deployed inconsistently across different environments due to varying tools and processes
- Lack of standardization: Gaps in disaster recovery (DR) protocols and deployment procedures affected overall efficiency
- Security risks: Vulnerability scanning and quality checks were insufficient, increasing security risks
- Governance issues: Multiple AWS accounts lacked standardized IAM policies and governance controls
The Objective
The goal was to streamline application management, ensure consistent deployments and enhance security and governance through a unified AWS environment.
- Evaluation: A comprehensive review of current application deployment processes and security practices identified inefficiencies and vulnerabilities
- Gap analysis: Pinpointed areas for improvement in CI/CD workflows, security scans and IAM governance
The Solution
HCLTech implemented a comprehensive solution to streamline operations and improve security:
- Automated application migration: Consolidated seven key applications into a unified AWS account structure using a zero-human touch approach
- Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Deployed Terraform to automate resource provisioning and ensure consistency across production and non-production environments
- CI/CD standardization: Introduced standardized CI/CD pipelines with built-in quality gates and vulnerability scans to ensure secure deployments
- Governance improvements: Implemented role-based access control to streamline security and simplify IAM policy management
The Impact
- Operational efficiency: Automated deployments reduced manual errors, speeding up application delivery
- Security enhancements: Improved vulnerability scans and role-based access control reduced risks and enhanced compliance
- Faster deployment: Migration to a single account structure with automated provisioning increased deployment speed by 50%
- Governance: Centralized governance and IAM policy enforcement improved security and compliance
AWS services used:
Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, AWS Lambda, AWS CloudFormation, AWS IAM, Terraform
