Customer Issue

The customer, a prominent organization, faced a critical challenge in efficiently managing their IT infrastructure. Their existing on-premises Active Directory (AD) setup was insufficient to meet the growing demands of their expanding operations. They required a scalable, reliable, and secure solution that seamlessly extended their AD services to the cloud while maintaining robust connectivity with their existing on-premises infrastructure. Moreover, the customer sought a cost-effective approach to achieve this without compromising performance or security.

Solution

Leveraging AWS's robust and scalable cloud infrastructure, stc Bahrain proposed a comprehensive solution centered around AWS services to effectively address the customer's requirements. Key highlights of the solution include:

1. AWS Account and Virtual Private Cloud (VPC): A dedicated AWS account was created to host the Active Directory domain controller. A VPC with private subnets was configured to ensure a secure and isolated environment for hosting the EC2 instance running the additional AD domain controller.
2. Amazon EC2: The AD domain controller was deployed on an Amazon EC2 instance, providing the customer with the reliability and scalability necessary for their growing operations.
3. Site-to-Site VPN: A secure site-to-site VPN connection was established between the AWS environment and the customer's on-premises infrastructure. This ensured seamless communication and synchronization between the primary AD on-premises and the additional AD in the cloud.
4. AWS Security Services: The solution was fortified with AWS security services, including AWS Config for compliance monitoring, AWS CloudTrail for logging and auditing, AWS KMS for encryption, AWS GuardDuty for threat detection, and AWS Inspector for vulnerability assessment.
5. Monitoring and Alarms: Amazon CloudWatch was deployed to monitor the health and performance of the EC2 instance and network traffic. Custom alarms and dashboards were configured to provide real-time insights and proactive issue resolution.
6. S3 Storage: An S3 bucket was set up for secure storage of logs and other critical data, ensuring compliance and ease of access.

Benefits

The deployment of this AWS-centric solution delivered transformative benefits to the customer, including:

1. Enhanced Scalability and Flexibility: By leveraging AWS, the customer gained the ability to scale their infrastructure effortlessly to meet increasing demands, ensuring business continuity and operational efficiency.
2. Improved Security and Compliance: AWS's industry-leading security services ensured that the customer's infrastructure adhered to stringent security and compliance standards, protecting sensitive data and minimizing risks.
3. Seamless Integration: The secure site-to-site VPN enabled seamless communication between the customer's on-premises infrastructure and the AWS cloud, maintaining the integrity and synchronization of their Active Directory services.
4. Cost-Effectiveness: By migrating to AWS, the customer achieved significant cost savings through optimized resource utilization and reduced infrastructure management overhead.
5. Real-Time Monitoring and Insights: Amazon CloudWatch provided the customer with real-time monitoring capabilities, enabling proactive issue detection and resolution, thereby reducing downtime and improving overall system performance.