The Challenge
A rapidly growing Dutch FinTech company needed to migrate their on-premise infrastructure to AWS while maintaining strict security and compliance requirements. The main challenges included:
- Zero downtime requirement - As a payment processing platform, any downtime would result in significant revenue loss
- Regulatory compliance - Must maintain AVG/GDPR compliance throughout migration
- Data sovereignty - All data must remain in EU regions
- Performance - Cannot compromise on transaction processing speed
- Security - Enhanced security posture required for financial data
Our Approach
Phase 1: Assessment & Planning (Week 1-2)
We conducted a comprehensive assessment of their existing infrastructure:
- Mapped all dependencies and data flows
- Identified compliance requirements
- Created detailed migration roadmap
- Designed target AWS architecture
- Established rollback procedures
Phase 2: AWS Landing Zone Setup (Week 2-3)
Built a secure, compliant AWS foundation:
- Multi-account structure with AWS Organizations
- AWS Control Tower for governance
- Centralized logging with CloudWatch and CloudTrail
- Network segmentation with VPC design
- IAM policies and role-based access control
- KMS encryption for data at rest
Phase 3: Pilot Migration (Week 3-4)
Tested the migration process with non-critical workloads:
- Migrated development environment
- Validated compliance controls
- Tested backup and recovery
- Refined migration procedures
- Trained client team
Phase 4: Production Migration (Week 4-6)
Executed phased production migration:
- Blue-green deployment strategy
- Real-time data synchronization
- Progressive traffic shifting
- Continuous monitoring
- Immediate rollback capability
Technical Solution
Architecture
Compute:
- Amazon ECS for containerized applications
- Application Load Balancer for traffic distribution
- Auto Scaling Groups for elasticity
Database:
- Amazon RDS PostgreSQL with Multi-AZ
- Amazon ElastiCache for Redis caching
- Automated backups with 30-day retention
Security:
- AWS WAF for application protection
- AWS Shield for DDoS protection
- AWS Secrets Manager for credential management
- VPC with private subnets for database tier
- Security Groups with least-privilege access
Compliance:
- AWS Config for compliance monitoring
- AWS Audit Manager for audit evidence
- Encryption at rest and in transit
- Detailed audit logs with CloudTrail
Monitoring:
- CloudWatch dashboards for real-time metrics
- CloudWatch Alarms for proactive alerting
- AWS X-Ray for distributed tracing
- Custom business metrics tracking
Results
Performance Improvements
- Transaction processing: 35% faster response times
- Scalability: Auto-scaling handles 10x traffic spikes
- Availability: Improved from 99.9% to 99.99%
Cost Optimization
- 40% cost reduction compared to on-premise
- Pay-per-use model eliminates over-provisioning
- Reserved Instances for predictable workloads
- Spot Instances for batch processing
Security Enhancements
- Zero security incidents post-migration
- Automated patching reduces vulnerability window
- Enhanced monitoring with real-time threat detection
- Compliance - Passed external audit first attempt
Business Impact
- Customer satisfaction increased due to improved performance
- Development velocity accelerated with CI/CD pipelines
- Time to market reduced for new features
- Operational burden decreased, allowing focus on core business
Client Testimonial
“Forrict’s expertise and methodical approach gave us confidence throughout the migration. We achieved zero downtime, improved performance, and reduced costs - all while enhancing our security posture. The team’s knowledge of both AWS and financial compliance requirements was invaluable.”
— CTO, Dutch FinTech Scale-up
Technologies Used
- AWS Services: ECS, RDS, ElastiCache, CloudWatch, CloudTrail, WAF, Shield, KMS, Secrets Manager, Config, Control Tower
- Infrastructure as Code: AWS CDK (TypeScript)
- CI/CD: AWS CodePipeline, CodeBuild, CodeDeploy
- Monitoring: CloudWatch, X-Ray, Custom Dashboards
- Security: IAM, Security Groups, NACLs, WAF Rules
Lessons Learned
- Compliance from Day 1 - Building compliance into architecture from the start is easier than retrofitting
- Blue-Green Works - Blue-green deployment provided confidence and safety net
- Data Sync is Critical - Real-time data synchronization enabled seamless cutover
- Team Training - Investing in client team training ensured long-term success
- Monitor Everything - Comprehensive monitoring caught issues before they impacted users
Next Steps
Post-migration, we continue to support the client with:
- Ongoing cost optimization reviews
- Performance tuning
- Security assessments
- Feature enhancements
- 24/7 managed services
Want similar results for your business? Contact us to discuss your AWS migration project.