Solution brief Security organization looks to leverage the cloud to provide security solutions to more businesses
By Insight Editor / 23 Dec 2019
The Challenge
Every day, Allied Universal Services (AUS) provides security for over 42,000 client sites across North America. Their staff includes over 200,000 security professionals who monitor, report and respond to incidents at client sites. They provide an essential service at customer sites in industries including higher education, healthcare and corporate campuses.
Technology plays a large role in AUS’s business, addressing a range of issues including access control, alarm and intrusion control, industrial video systems, remote video monitoring and autonomous video. As AUS’s business grew, so did their technology needs.
Their executive management team knew that, in order to maintain the scalability and high availability that their security business demands, they needed look to the cloud to provide solutions for their platform, as constantly upgrading on-premises solutions can be time consuming, and the related hardware can be costly.
Another key factor in their decision was the security features of their selected cloud solution. Because AUS is in the security business, keeping their infrastructure secure from threats is of paramount importance.
The Solution
In planning the migration of CyCop -- AUS's core business application -- to the cloud, AUS contracted with Insight to have its cloud solutions architects develop a roadmap for the migration of CyCop from an on-premises solution to a hybrid cloud solution. AUS needed a solution which would meet the needs of its current and future customers, support both multi-tenant and single-tenant customers, satisfy regulatory and compliance standards, and dynamically expand to accommodate AUS’s growing business in both the public and private sectors.
AUS asked Insight to provide a vendor-neutral, solution-agnostic evaluation of this application. Insight developed roadmaps for the migration of CyCop, a .NET application, to a recommended cloud solution
Insight's cloud solutions architects worked closely with the customer to document known state; to interview key stakeholders and subject matter experts; to capture business requirements, functional and non-functional requirements, and design knowledge; and to identify configuration items and dependencies.
Insight's cloud solutions arcitects delivered a 95-page report, which covered:
- Current known state for the application.
- Initial phase I designs, in which Insight mapped the current on-premises application to a cloud-based solution. Phase I was, at the customer’s request, an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) design: an as-is, forklift, or lift-and-shift design.
- Phase II and III designs, which discussed services and features offered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Azure which – if incorporated into the design – would boost security, reliability, performance efficiency, cost optimization, operational excellence and compliance.
- Cost models for each phase, for both the Azure and AWS designs.
- An identification of risks and level of effort estimates for each phase of migration of the service to cloud.
The report included an operational runbook/playbook, which captured the essential information needed to efficiently provide operational support for this business-critical system and its services. This document serves as a primary reference for Operations, Development, Engineering, Support, Business and Service Owners. Operational runbooks are also frequently referenced by management and used in onboarding.
In addition, Insight provided a detailed introduction to the AWS and Azure security models, the AWS shared responsibility model, the compliance of AWS and Azure service offerings, and security best practices and guidelines.
The Results
By partnering with Insight, AUS received the information it needed to make an informed decision about migrating a critical business application to cloud. Insight delivered the information AUS needed to predict, plan and mitigate the potential risks of moving this core application.
The AUS executive team carefully considered the solution features and benefits provided by Insight, and they selected the AWS option due to its overall security features, high availability model, and elastic scalability. AUS was impressed with the abilities of Insight's professional services team, which included a fully supported team of experienced AWS certified cloud solution architects with the deep expertise needed to design and deploy the AWS solution and migrate AUS's vital platform applications to the AWS Cloud.
