How AC3 Partnered with Bayside Council to Transform their Digital Landscape
In June 2023, Bayside Council engaged AC3 with the task of modernising their workloads and deployment practices.
To conquer these challenges, they partnered with AC3 who conducted a thorough Well-Architected Framework Review. AC3 identified crucial areas for improvement, such as addressing technical debt accumulation, enhancing the support model, and improving security posture. This success story delves into the technical hurdles, the solutions implemented, and the outcomes of this transformative project.
The Technical Challenges
Bayside Council (Bayside) encountered several pressing technical challenges to uplift their security posture, modernise deployment and optimise workloads.
With no separate environments for production and staging, thorough testing was challenging. Testing directly in the production environment carried risks of unpredictable outcomes, especially during updates and maintenance activities. Added to this, adhering to the Australian Cyber Security Centre (ACSC) Essential Eight Maturity Model was imperative.
To modernise deployment, Bayside was heavily reliant on manual operations for code deployments and infrastructure management, leading to inefficiencies and inconsistencies. Deployments to the live site required a strict change control and approval process.
Maximising the benefits of the cloud platform while ensuring efficient and cost-effective resource utilisation was a top priority for Bayside Council to optimise workloads.
AC3 played a pivotal role in reshaping Bayside Council's digital landscape by implementing:
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Multi-Account Structure Through the implementation of a multi-account structure via AWS Control Tower, security isolation, simplified management, and clear separation of environments for different purposes became a reality.
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CICD (Continuous Integration & Continuous Delivery) Pipelines The introduction of CICD pipelines removed manual code and resource deployment operations, resulting in reduced lead time for feature releases and promoting automation.
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Resource Sizing and Optimisation AC3's expertise in sizing instances and optimising resources facilitated significant cost savings in operational expenses.
The Technology Solution
AC3 crafted a comprehensive technology solution to combat these challenges which included the adoption of an AWS Control Tower, Amazon Aurora, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), Automation with BitBucket Pipelines and access to a highly-available environment.
By introducing an AWS Control Tower service, AC3 streamlined Bayside Council’s multi-account management and governance. This service centralised policy enforcement, security guardrails, and compliance controls, substantially reducing the risk of misconfigurations and non-compliance.
To ensure high availability and optimal performance, Amazon Aurora was chosen as the database management solution. It guaranteed the database could meet the dynamic website's demands.
By embracing a DevOps approach, AC3 utilised Infrastructure as Code (IaC), specifically AWS CloudFormation, as a viable technology solution for Bayside Council. This shift fostered operational excellence, security, consistency, and repeatability.
AC3 seamlessly integrated BitBucket Pipelines with AWS CodeDeploy and AWS Lambda to automate workload operations and streamline web application code. This approach elevated Bayside's agility and operational efficiency.
By designing a fault-tolerant environment, AC3 also enabled hardened web servers spread across multiple availability zones and shielded by load balancers and the AWS Web Application Firewall (WAF) for enhanced protection against web exploits.
Project Success
The project's success manifested in several key accomplishments, including Infrastructure Alignment, the implementation of Infrastructure as a Code, Automated Operations, Change Control and Resource Optimisation.
Bayside's infrastructure now closely adheres to the AWS Well-Architected Framework, particularly in terms of Operational Excellence, Performance Efficiency, and Security. The implementation Infrastructure as Code and the adoption of AWS CloudFormation ushered in a significant transformation for Bayside. Automation, consistency, and auditability became the norm.
Automated Operations significantly reduced downtime, improved consistency, and established a zero-touch production environment, perfectly aligning with modern DevOps practices. Through Change Control, stringent change control processes are now effectively in place, accompanied by webmaster approval. This ensured that modifications to Bayside's live site underwent thorough review, rigorous testing, and secure execution.
Resource Optimisation also ensured that Instances were appropriately sized, and resources were meticulously optimised, leading to significant cost savings for Bayside Council, by eliminating overprovisioning.
AC3's astute implementation of these solutions not only overcame critical technical challenges, but also substantially improved security, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness.
Bayside Council's journey toward successfully modernising its workload and deployment practices, serves as a testament to the transformative power of leveraging AWS services, automation, and best cloud practices.