A major construction enterprise in the Middle East partnered with stc Bahrain to modernize its IT operations and build a resilient, secure, and scalable AWS cloud environment. With 18 interconnected branch locations and critical workloads centralized in a single on-premises site, the organization required a strategic shift to eliminate operational risk and ensure business continuity.

Through a governance-first transformation and implementation of AWS multi-account architecture, the organization achieved enterprise-grade disaster recovery, compliance automation, and cost optimization—positioning itself for long-term resilience and operational excellence.

The Challenge

The organization’s legacy infrastructure lacked the controls and flexibility needed for modern, distributed operations. Key pain points included:

• Single Point of Failure: All operations were tied to one physical location, posing a major business continuity risk.    
• No Centralized Governance: Each branch operated independently, with inconsistent policies and minimal visibility.    
• Manual Audit Preparation: Security audit reporting required over 3 weeks of effort with no automation.    
• Uncontrolled Cloud Spend: Up to 30% budget variance due to lack of tagging, allocation, or budget enforcement.    
• Non-Compliance Risks: No enforcement of security baselines or adherence to construction industry regulations.

The Solution

stc Bahrain delivered a robust AWS-native solution that enabled business continuity, operational maturity, and financial governance:

1. Multi-Account Governance Architecture   
• Implemented AWS Organizations and Control Tower for account hierarchy and lifecycle control.   
• Applied Service Control Policies (SCPs) for access governance and security policy enforcement.   
• Enabled Azure federated identity across all AWS accounts.   
• Centralized logging and audit tracking using AWS Config and CloudTrail.

2. Disaster Recovery with Governance Controls   
• Deployed AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS) to replicate 14 on-prem servers in real time.   
• Designed multi-VPC architecture with production, recovery, and networking layers.   
• Enabled automated failover, branch VPN connectivity, and real-time policy synchronization.

3. Observability and Monitoring   
• Centralized performance and compliance dashboards via Amazon CloudWatch and CloudWatch Dashboards.   
• Integrated alerting, audit trails, and threat detection using GuardDuty, Security Hub, and SNS.

4. Financial Operations Enablement (FinOps)   
• Introduced tagging governance across branches and projects for accurate spend tracking.   
• Enforced budget controls using AWS Budgets and enabled cost optimization via Cost Explorer.   
• Streamlined cost visibility and audit readiness through automation.

Key Benefits

✅ Guaranteed Business Continuity  
Achieved sub-10-minute recovery time across 18 locations via automated DR.

✅ 98% Policy Compliance  
Unified governance framework with real-time enforcement and automated validation.

✅ >99% Reduction in Audit Prep Time  
Dropped audit preparation time from 3 weeks to under 2 hours.

✅ $873K in Cost Savings over 5 Years  
Reduced TCO by 67.5% compared to on-prem alternative through governance-driven optimization.

✅ Scalable Governance Framework  
Enabled rapid onboarding of future branches and construction projects with built-in security, compliance, and observability.

AWS Services Used

Governance & Management 
• AWS Organizations 
• AWS Control Tower 
• AWS Config 
• AWS CloudTrail 
• AWS IAM + Azure Federation

Disaster Recovery & Continuity 
• AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (DRS) 
• Amazon EC2, EBS Snapshots 
• AWS DataSync 
• Amazon FSx

Networking & Connectivity 
• Amazon VPC, Transit Gateway 
• AWS Site-to-Site VPN 
• EC2 VPN Concentrator

Monitoring & Security 
• Amazon CloudWatch 
• AWS GuardDuty 
• AWS Security Hub 
• Amazon SNS

Cost & Operations 
• AWS Budgets 
• AWS Cost Explorer 
• AWS Trusted Advisor

Conclusion

This engagement demonstrates how governance-focused AWS cloud architecture can transform legacy operations in highly distributed, compliance-sensitive industries like construction. With centralized policy management, automated disaster recovery, and financial governance, the customer now operates on a secure, scalable foundation—ready to expand into new markets with full operational confidence.

Contact our Cloud Governance specialists today at [email protected] to learn how we can transform your cloud operations through advanced AWS governance frameworks.