CUSTOMER SUCCESS
GLOBAL SOFTWARE COMPANY AUTOMATES SECURE CONNECTIVITY TO AWS
About the Customer
The customer provides services for major companies that include helpdesk, back office support, and live chat functionality, as well as technical support, strategy and optimization services for employees and their customers.
The Vision and Challenge
With the global COVID-19 crisis reaching new heights, international government shutdowns required this services company to shut down their on-site operations immediately. As staff began to work from home, they needed to implement remote virtualized desktop access for all of their helpdesk staff as soon as possible. They wanted to partner with a trusted third-party expert who understood network, security, AWS cloud architecture, VDI (WorkSpaces) and DevOps automation to accomplish their tight timeline. Finding a partner with core expertise and experience in all of these areas was a challenge. They immediately needed to engage, architect and successfully deploy an AWS WorkSpaces solution that integrated with their existing Tier 7 security services partner and their legacy Microsoft identity management system in order to keep their business running during the global pandemic.
To achieve the proper synthesis of all their technologies, they had to follow proper governance policies for cybersecurity to avoid cyber breaches and sensitive data exposure. All of these aspects depended upon rebuilding their Group Policy Object (GPO) and automating their networking to harness an entirely remote workforce. The company used Egress to white label their agent access while allowing their team secure live chat access to their clients.
Altogether, these requirements made for a complex, yet urgent project timeframe. A proven and trusted partner like InterVision was crucial to successfully deploy their AWS WorkSpaces VD solution, since their core business operations rested upon the successful enablement of their remote workforce.
The Outcome
They selected InterVision for the project, given our expertise in network infrastructure, identity management, cloud services deployments, VDI, managed security services and unified communications. When beginning their implementation, we discovered that their Active Directory had too much latency, so they needed a networking solution to accommodate high traffic loads. As more requirements surfaced, we tied in network close access for security and desktop hardening. The customer required a networking solution to accommodate high traffic loads, to achieve low latency and real-time fine monitoring and tuning while hardening their desktops.
We provisioned an AWS cloud architecture that included AWS WorkSpaces Desktop (for their virtual desktop imaging needs), Identity Management via Microsoft Active Directory, and AWS Transit Gateway using Palo Alto Networks firewalls for their complex networking and routing needs. In the end, most projects of this scale take approximately 3 months but COVID-19 brought the best out in both teams and our strong 24×7 collaboration, deep bench, and systemic automation allowed us to complete this project in one week.
Technologies Utilized:
- AWS Cloud
- AWS WorkSpaces
- AWS Transit Gateway
- Palo Alto Networks firewalls
- Microsoft Active Directory
