Hints and tips on how to optimise your AWS architecture

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Amazon Web Services, better known as AWS, is a cloud computing platform offering a wide array of services, including computing, storage, and content delivery. AWS allows organisations to build, deploy, and manage their applications and services in the cloud, providing scalability, reliability, and security. However, to get the most out of AWS, it is important to optimise your architecture. In this blog, we will provide some hints and tips on how to optimise your AWS architecture.

Introduction to AWS Architecture Optimisation

AWS is a popular cloud computing platform that provides a wide range of services and tools for building, deploying, and managing applications and infrastructure. With its vast array of services and capabilities, it can be challenging to optimise your AWS architecture for maximum performance and efficiency.

However, by following a few best practices and implementing the right strategies, you can ensure that your AWS architecture is optimised and running smoothly. In this blog, we’ll provide some hints and tips on how to optimise your AWS architecture, covering topics such as resource management, security, and cost optimisation.

Resource Management

One key aspect of optimising your AWS architecture is effective resource management. By properly managing your resources, you can ensure that your infrastructure is running efficiently and effectively. Here are a few tips for resource management:

Use Auto Scaling

Auto Scaling is a service that automatically adjusts the number of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) instances in your architecture based on demand. This can help to ensure that your organisation has the right amount of resources available to meet the needs of your applications, while also minimising costs by only using the resources you need.

Use Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) or Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)

ECS and EKS are container orchestration services that allow you to deploy and manage containerised applications on AWS. By using these services, you can optimise the resource utilisation of your applications, as well as scale them up or down as needed. Proper planning and scoping is always recommended to ensure that your applications run smoothly.

Use Amazon DynamoDB

DynamoDB is a fully managed NoSQL database service that can help you optimise the performance and scalability of your applications. By using DynamoDB, you can easily store, retrieve, and query data at any scale, without the need to worry about infrastructure management.

Use Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS)

Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) is a fully managed database service offered by AWS. It makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale a relational database in the cloud. RDS supports popular database engines like MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Amazon Aurora, together with a variety of database options and features. With RDS, you can offload the administrative tasks of managing a database to AWS, which can save you both time and resources. RDS also offers high availability and automatic scaling, so you can focus on building your application instead of worrying about the underlying infrastructure. If SQL is required, then RDS is the go-for option.

Security

Security is an important consideration when optimising your AWS architecture. By implementing the right security measures, you can ensure that your infrastructure is protected against threats and vulnerabilities. Here are a few tips for improving the security of your AWS architecture:

Use Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

VPC is a service that allows you to create a virtual network in the cloud, where you can launch AWS resources in a virtual private subnet. By using VPC, you can control the inbound and outbound traffic to your resources, and you can also implement security measures such as network access control lists (ACLs) and security groups. Where possible, you should also place your resources in private subnets which do not have direct access from/to the Internet.

Use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM)

IAM is a service that enables you to manage user access to your AWS resources. By using IAM, you can create and manage users and groups, and you can also define and enforce policies for controlling access to your resources.

Use Amazon GuardDuty

GuardDuty is a threat detection service that uses machine learning and other technologies to identify and alert you to potential threats to your AWS infrastructure. By using GuardDuty, you can improve the security of your architecture by detecting and responding to threats in real-time.

In general the security issues in AWS are commonly the result of poor identity and access management, administrators not understanding the shared-responsibility model, AMIs made public and improper data encryption.

Cost Optimisation

Optimising the cost of your AWS architecture is an important consideration, as it can help to ensure that you are only paying for the resources you actually need. Here are a few tips for cost optimisation:

Expenditure and usage awareness

One way to optimise the cost of your AWS architecture is to use Amazon CloudWatch to monitor your resource usage and identify areas where you may be overprovisioning. By identifying and addressing overprovisioning, you can reduce your costs without sacrificing performance.

Cost-effective resources

Another tip for cost optimisation is to use Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances, which allow you to reserve capacity for EC2 instances in exchange for a lower hourly rate. This can be a cost-effective option if you have a predictable workload and can commit to using a certain number of instances over a one- or three-year term.

You can also use AWS Trusted Advisor to identify cost optimisation opportunities within your architecture. Trusted Advisor is a service that provides best practice recommendations for optimising your resources and reducing costs.

Optimise over time

Finally, consider using AWS Cost Explorer to track and analyse your AWS costs over time. With Cost Explorer, you can identify trends in your resource usage and costs, and you can use this information to make informed decisions about how to optimise your architecture.

Our methodology and values

Over the years, 56Bit has developed the ‘architect and design’ service offering, which helps businesses design, run and maintain future-proof AWS architectures. 56Bit’s methodologies ensure that platforms provide: security, resilience, cost-efficiency, high-availability, performance and data durability.

A WAFR product was created by the team at 56Bit – It carries out a thorough review of all the AWS architecture aspects discussed in this article. On successful completion of the review phase, the appropriate fixes and upgrades will be rolled-out by 56Bit as an extension of your in-house resources. Our WAFR essentially is a review and fix iteration of the existing AWS architecture of organisations.

Optimising your Amazon Web Services (AWS) architecture is essential for maintaining the performance and efficiency of your cloud infrastructure. Get in touch with us today, to set an exploratory meeting.

Top vulnerabilities arising from AWS misconfiguration

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Amazon Web Services (AWS) is known to provide many benefits, such as scalability, reliability, and security, but nevertheless, it is not immune to vulnerabilities. Misconfigurations within an AWS architecture can lead to security vulnerabilities that can compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your applications and data. In this blog article, we’ll discuss the top vulnerabilities that can emerge from AWS misconfigurations, and provide some tips on how to prevent and mitigate these risks.

Exposed Access Keys

One common vulnerability that can arise from AWS misconfigurations is the exposure of access keys. Access keys are used to authenticate access to AWS resources, and they consist of an access key ID and a secret access key. If these keys are exposed, they can be used to gain unauthorised access to your resources and data.

To prevent the exposure of access keys, it’s important to implement the following best practices:

  • Use IAM to manage and rotate access keys regularly
  • Use IAM roles (which create short-lived keys) where possible
  • Use IAM Identity Center (previously known as AWS SSO) to create short-lived keys for your AWS administrators
  • Use multi-factor authentication (MFA) for IAM users
  • Use IAM policies to limit access to only the resources and actions that are necessary
  • Do not share access keys with other users or commit them to version control

Insecure S3 Buckets

Another common vulnerability that can arise from AWS misconfigurations is the misconfiguration of Amazon S3 buckets. S3 is a popular object storage service that can be used to store and retrieve data at any scale. However, if S3 buckets are misconfigured, they can be accessed by unauthorised users, leading to the exposure of sensitive data.

To prevent the misconfiguration of S3 buckets, it’s important to implement the following best practices:

  • Use IAM policies to control access to S3 buckets
  • Use S3 access points to control access to specific parts of S3 buckets
  • Use versioning to preserve, retrieve, and restore previous versions of objects in your buckets
  • Use server-side encryption to protect data at rest
  • Use AWS CloudTrail to monitor and log activity in your S3 buckets
  • Use AWS Backup to ensure you have valid backups of your S3 data

Unsecured Networking Components

A common occurance vulnerability that can arise from AWS misconfigurations is the misconfiguration of networking components such as Amazon VPCs, security groups, and network ACLs. These components are used to control the inbound and outbound traffic to your resources, and if they are misconfigured, they can allow unauthorised access to your resources.

To prevent the misconfiguration of networking components, it is important to implement the following best practices:

  • Use VPCs and private subnets to isolate your resources from the public Internet
  • Use security groups to control inbound and outbound traffic to your resources
  • Use network ACLs to control inbound and outbound traffic at the subnet level
  • Use AWS Config to monitor and audit the configuration of your networking components
  • Use AWS GuardDuty

Unpatched Operating Systems and Applications

A vulnerability which we come across frequently, when taking over an account, that can arise from AWS misconfigurations, is the failure to patch operating systems and applications. Cybercriminals often exploit known vulnerabilities in unpatched systems to gain access to resources and data.

To prevent the exploitation of unpatched systems, it’s important to implement the following best practices:

  • Use Amazon Inspector to identify and assess vulnerabilities in your systems
  • Use AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager to automate the patching process
  • Use AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to control access to systems and applications
  • Use AWS Config to monitor and audit the configuration of your systems and applications

Risks to avoid

When cybercriminals breach cloud environments, they often hold organisations at ransom asking for crypto funds in exchange for “unfreeze keys”. Data breaches can have devastating consequences for any organisation, namely, monetary in the form of fines, legal fees, and compensation monies, reputational and regulatory, wherein licences can be suspended or revoked.

Different engagement models

56Bit is a fluid organisation and can help organisations around the globe in a myriad of ways. If you are struggling with finding the right resource pool, 56Bit can provide you with fully qualified and experienced professionals through a staff augmentation arrangement. If you are after an external expert perspective then our consultancy arm can provide you with highly specialised knowledge. Alternatively, 56Bit can work as an extension of your in-house team in a fully embedded manner.

There are several top vulnerabilities emanating from AWS misconfigurations. These include insecure access to AWS resources, inadequate security for EC2 instances, insecure storage of sensitive data, and inadequate network security. It is important for AWS users to properly configure their tools and services and to regularly monitor their architecture to identify and address potential vulnerabilities. By taking these steps, they can help protect their AWS environment from potential attacks.

Let’s explore how we can support your business and technical needs. Contact us to learn more about our services.

Three Ways how AWS makes remote working more practical

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The COVID-19 pandemic expedited the shift onto remote working and following the worst months of the pandemic work from home and hybrid working arrangements are still very popular most within iGaming, Fintech and RegTech sectors. AWS (Amazon Web Services) offers a vast range of services to help businesses and their remote workers to be highly productive and efficient.

Following are three ways in which AWS makes remote working more practical.

Virtual Desktop and Applications solutions

The shift to work from home or practically anywhere made solutions by AWS crucial – The virtual desktop infrastructure (known as VDI) allows employees to access their work environment from anywhere and on any device. The day-to-day working experience is improved via solutions such as Amazon Workspaces, which is secure and reliable.

Cloud Storage to store, access and share files

AWS provides storage solutions on the cloud, such as Amazon S3, that allow remote workers, possibly scattered across the globe, to store, access and share their files and data from any location, in a secure manner. The risks of data loss and damage to physical store devices (such as on-premise servers and SANs) is radically reduced. Data safety and security is achieved through such solutions. It is of utmost importance that access rights management and user management are properly administered to avoid unauthorised access to sensitive data and files. 

AWS backup and disaster recovery solutions need to be in place and configured appropriately to avoid loss of business continuity.

Constant collaboration and steady communication

Steady communication and collaboration is key to the success of remote teams. Best practices of holding real-time virtual meetings is facilitated by AWS tools such as Amazon Chime. Productivity is directly impacted by communication and collaboration therefore teams need a strong and steady backbone to rely on. Integration of tools is another consideration of paramount importance. In the case of Amazon Chime, this integrates in a frictionless manner to other services such as Amazon Workspaces. The seamless integration of various AWS services help provide a smooth and integrated experience to workers working on a remote basis.

Working From Home

  • Amazon Workspaces enables remote workforces to launch virtual Windows and Linux desktops, both of which are accessed from anywhere and from any device.
  • Amazon WorkDocs facilitates the creation, editing, sharing and reviewing of content in a collaborative environment, with all content stored centrally on AWS.
  • Amazon Chime allows online meetings with tens of participants, with both chats and video calls from one single application on the cloud.
  • Amazon Connect lets organisations set up a call centre based in the cloud routing inbound calls and messages to teams of tele-agents. This is ideal for customer care and support teams, working from home.
  • AWS Client VPN ensures secure connections to AWS and/or on-premise networks are established from anywhere. Employees and other stakeholders will be able to ‘dial in’ to the existing core network in a secure way.

These services together with others such as AWS Chatbot and AWS IQ were designed to make life easier when using remote or hybrid arrangements. Talk to us today to help you set up the best AWS architecture for an efficient, secure and practical remote working environment.

Benefits of opting for the cloud over the traditional on premise setups

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On Premise vs. The Cloud. Top 5 benefits of the cloud.

In today’s age where organisations are increasingly becoming more digital, business leaders are faced with a critical decision: whether to host their application and data on-premise or in the cloud. Both have their pros and cons, and the way-forward depends on several factors, namely: business size, budget, security requirements and scalability needs.

Following are the main five benefits of the cloud over an on-premise setup whereby a business hosts applications and data within its very own physical location.

What is a Cloud Solution?

Cloud solutions refer to hosting applications and data in a remote location, typically managed by a third-party service provider. Cloud solutions are becoming increasingly popular because of the many benefits they offer. Some of the main benefits of the cloud include scalability, cost savings, reliability, and accessibility. The main players in this space are Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Microsoft Azure.

Top 5 Benefits of the Cloud are:

  1. Scalability: One of the biggest benefits of the cloud is scalability. Cloud solutions allow businesses to scale up or down as needed, depending on their changing business needs. This can be done without the need for expensive hardware upgrades, which can lead to serious savings. This benefit directly leads to higher agility to scale up and allows for rapid growth hacking. 
  2. Cost Savings: Another benefit of the cloud vis-a-vis on-premise is cost savings. Cloud solutions are typically more cost-effective than on-premise solutions, as they do not require a large upfront investment in hardware and infrastructure. Businesses only pay for what they use, which can result in significant cost savings over time. Less energy consumption allows for less expenses and a contribution to environment sustainability.
  3. Reliability: Cloud solutions are highly reliable and provide businesses with a high level of uptime and data security. With cloud solutions, such as the top performing AWS, businesses can avoid the costs and headaches associated with managing and maintaining their own hardware and infrastructure. One has to keep in mind that, the cloud providers offer a shared-responsibility model, whereby the client still needs to honour various elements of the equation, such as configurations and security upgrades.
  4. Accessibility: Cloud solutions provide businesses with anywhere, anytime access to their applications and data. This makes it easier for employees to work from anywhere and collaborate in real-time, which can boost productivity and efficiency. With the remote working reality becoming the order of the day, this advantage has added significant weight to decision makers opting for cloud setups. 
  5. Security: Cloud solutions offer a high level of data security, which is crucial for businesses in today’s digital landscape. With data breaches happening every few seconds, worldwide, this consideration should be given its respective importance. Cloud providers, such as AWS, invest heavily in security measures, such as encryption and data backups, to ensure that organisations’ data is protected.

In a nutshell opting for a cloud setup offers the benefits of scalability, cost savings, reliability, accessibility, and security. If you are considering moving to the cloud, consult us and we will help you all the way from the initial proof of concept architecture to the ongoing maintenance and the important data migrations.

Reduce IT department responsibilities, eliminate CAPEX (capital expenditures) and adjust your budgets into pay-as-you-go basis. Learn more. Get in touch with us.

Leverage the power of AWS to extract crucial insights from your data

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Data is the most valuable resource in any organisation. Fact. Do not leave your data lying there with no use. Extract key insights from your data that can drive important decisions. Modern business intelligence is a driving force behind successful businesses and business leaders. AWS provides a suite of powerful tools and services that allow organisations to store, process, query and analyse large volumes of data.

By leveraging the power of AWS, one can extract crucial insights from their gathered data to drive growth and fuel their strategic direction. Below are some ways in which this can be successfully done.

Data Warehousing and Analytics

Amazon Web Services provides an array of data warehousing and analytics tools, such as Amazon Redshift, allowing organisations to store data in the cloud and analyse the respective structure or semi-structured data. Redshift enables organisations, such as banks, insurance companies, iGaming operators and software development houses, to easily gain insight into their data marts, without hefty investments in hardware and infrastructure.

Big Data Processing 

AWS offers tools that are crucial to big data processing, such as Amazon EMR, which allows businesses, of varying size, to process and analyse large amounts of data in real-time. Critical decisions can be made in a timely manner this way and data can be used to give accurate scenarios related to performance, sales, operations and financial performance. This can be complemented with machine learning power in the form of Amazon SageMaker, whereby machine learning models would be built, trained and deployed to extract insights based on AI.

Data Visualisation 

To better understand, query and analyse the data, Amazon provides tools like Amazon QuickSight, which allows businesses to create interactive dashboards that help in understanding data. Setting up such highly-visual dashboards, allow for even the less tech savvy business manager to extract insights from their data and make informed decisions.

Leveraging data to extract crucial insights is key to finetune strategy, drive growth and make informed decisions based on real-life data. Base your decisions less on your gut and more on facts extracted from data.

Raw data does not add value to your business, it is important to convert it into actionable insights that help solve business problems and foster business growth..

Data analytics helps organisations gain more visibility and deeper understanding o their performance. Action plans can be drafted and implemented based on extracted insights, normally to enhance customer experience, to refine the overall business paradigms and to optimise operations. In addition, big data analytics facilitate and serve as an enabler to find patterns, trends and relationships in data sets. AWS helps in storage, scaling when data volumes increase and computational power (on the cloud).  

Our team of experts at 56Bit can help with all the processes of big data analytics, namely: data collection, data storage, data processing, data cleansing and data analysis; and the respective required ETL. Harness the power of data and AWS. Speak to us today!

5 ways how AWS can accelerate your digital transformation

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Digital transformation is not only a popular buzzword these days but a key trend in the business world, which strives to improve efficiency and agility and helps firms gain competitive advantage through the use of technology. Below are five ways how AWS accelerates digital transformation in organisations of varying sizes and operating in different sectors such as transport and logistics, iGaming, and financial services including FinTech and RegTech.

When organisations are sponsoring digital transformation initiatives, they need to work towards a successful cultural change. Stakeholders need to be involved and need to understand the benefits of such a transformation. It is of paramount importance that the mission is well-communicated, training is provided to up skill-sets and a transparent roadmap is created.

Adopt top notch application and development practices

AWS is a game-changer in this regard as it makes it relatively easy for businesses to adopt the latest application development practices. This allows entities to rapidly develop, test and subsequently deploy new products and services. CI/CD tools offered by AWS help automate development workflows, while you focus on other core business functions.

Business Analytics that provide detailed Business Insights

AWS provides a complete set of analytics services backed by machine learning and AI services that allow you to extract and gain valuable insights from the organisation’s most valuable digital asset – data. The latter aids in decision making, better customer experiences and ongoing business risk management and mitigation.

Innovation is the name of the game

Harnessing the power of the finest technologies, the rate of innovation is accelerated. Product development cycles are shortened thus providing faster delivery times. AWS supports businesses to build their next generation abilities. It provides organisations with big data analytics, end-to-end data management, customer enablement services and cutting-edge mobile development, to mention but a few. In AWS, there is practically a service for every operation.

Developer tools to manage applications

Utilising Developer Tools to Manage Applications; a developer can use AWS Command-Line tools and Software Development Kits (SDKs) to deploy and manage applications and services. Developer tools enable DevOps Engineers and Developers alike to rapidly and safely deliver and deploy software. These tools help IT professionals version control application source code. AWS CodePipeline is ideal to orchestrate a full-cycle software release workflow using these services.

Better security, Flexibility and overall compliance

Benefits that AWS brings that will in turn accelerate your digital transformation initiatives include security, conformity and resilience. Strong encryption options are available making it a safe cloud environment. Machine learning is used to protect business critical and sensitive data. AWS is flexible, dependable and secure and offers a robust set of tools and services that help in the migration process (when needed). 56Bit have extensive experience assisting organisations in every step of their migration journey. A typical migration process would include the migration of the following: applications, servers, database/s and data.

AWS follows a strict security-by-design approach and has a comprehensive set of security controls in place to protect customer data. The platform also undergoes regular security audits and assessments to ensure it meets industry standards.

In addition, AWS provides a wide range of compliance certifications and reports, such as SOC 2, PCI DSS, and HIPAA, which can help organisations demonstrate their compliance with industry regulations (and more importantly keep an active licence).

5 Reasons Why AWS accelerates Digital Transformation in Organisations

  • AWS Enables Scalability and Flexibility
  • AWS Offers a significant array of cloud services
  • AWS Offers Security and Compliance
  • AWS Facilitates Collaboration and Innovation
  • AWS Enables Integration and Interoperability

AWS supports businesses to grow and to function more efficiently and at a lower cost, hence why it is the world’s most widely used cloud platform.

We can help you reduce expenses, improve agility and accelerate your innovative digital transformation exercise. Get in touch with us.

5 Reasons AWS cloud hosting benefits iGaming Operators

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Making the shift onto the cloud can at times be overwhelming, but undoubtedly AWS benefits outweigh the work to lift-and-shift (and completely migrate) onto the cloud. Benefits that help iGaming operators build and maintain profitable digital assets (…their core products). AWS, today offers more than two hundred services ranging from database hosting, to cloud security and machine learning. The latest statistics show that AWS has one-third of the global cloud market share, more than triple Google’s cloud and more than Microsoft Azure’s 21%.

iGaming operators are increasingly seeking reliable and scalable hosting solutions that can support the fast-paced nature of their industry. AWS cloud hosting is becoming an increasingly popular choice among iGaming operators due to its numerous benefits. 

AWS cloud hosting can benefit iGaming operators in five ways.  

Pay only for the resources you use 

iGaming operators will solely pay for the computer, storage and network resources consumed, when using AWS. In addition, to the shortened lead times (to deploy), costs are much lower when compared to purchased or leased IT infrastructure. AWS cloud hosting is based on a ‘pay-as-you-go’ paradigm which is much more advantageous to the purchase and maintenance of on-premise hardware.

Scalability is not an issue

Gone are the days when iGaming operators used to buy redundant equipment and infrastructure to accommodate spikes and peak loads. Most of the latter infrastructure lies idle most of the time. AWS cloud’s scalability allows these operators to scale up or down as demand fluctuates. When not paying for idle resources, significant cost savings can be experienced. This flexibility makes AWS cloud hosting an ideal choice for iGaming operators, who experience significant fluctuations in traffic.

Outsourced Infrastructure Management

AWS, together with certified partners such as 56Bit, take care of the infrastructure for clients. iGaming operators, affiliates and platform providers, can focus their IT resources on core operations, where they generate most value. Rather than constantly monitoring and managing servers and components, these resources can leverage higher level PaaS and SaaS tools. The implementation worries are shifted to the cloud provider and partners.

A related benefit is that operators can roll-out new features and functionality in very short sprints. This rapiditness in deployment is only possible by making efficient use of AWS pre-configured templates and automated deployment tools. Time-to-market is key, and AWS is an enabler to expedited deployments.

Services that enable growth 

AWS provides a wide range of enterprise grade services that would be extremely expensive for an operator to build independently. Features such as distribution on data centres in various territories around the world and redundancy, are baked into the AWS platform, irrespective of the size and structure of the client. This makes it the ideal cloud platform to fuel growth (even rapid growth!).

Critical to the iGaming sector is the high availability and reliability AWS offers. iGaming operators can have peace of mind that their casino or sportsbook platforms are available 24/7. Downtime can lead to devastating losses of both revenue and player loyalty (since they would switch to competitors when experiencing issues with their user experience). Automatic failover mechanisms are one of many methods that AWS offers which can help achieve resilience and continuity.

Top Notch Security 

AWS aids iGaming operators to improve both security and compliance – both of which are crucial to adhere to regulatory requirements and safeguard data and players’ experiences. The most common security vulnerabilities on the cloud emanate from user errors, access management oversights and misconfiguration.  

Engaging a certified partner will help in understanding and managing the shared responsibility model – the dividing line between the user and AWS’ responsibility for cloud security.

Security is a top priority for iGaming operators, as they handle sensitive player data and financial transactions. AWS cloud hosting offers numerous security features, including network security, data encryption, and access controls. The platform is compliant with industry standards such as PCI DSS, ensuring that gaming operators can meet regulatory requirements (such as those by MGA and UKGC).

Enhance your AWS infrastructure with our expertise. 

56Bit can help iGaming operators make sure the transition to AWS is smooth, seamless and frictionless. We provide a comprehensive range of cloud services to empower your organisation to make the most of AWS, while ticking all the compliance boxes. 

Get in touch with us to explore how we can help!

We are now featured on DesignRush as a top Cloud Computing Consultancy agency.

How does AWS provide the financial services sector with resilient global cloud infrastructure

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AWS provides financial services organisations such as banks, insurances, e-money institutions and payments providers with secure, resilient, fully-scalable global cloud infrastructure and complementary services that help them thrive today and tomorrow.

These organisations require reliable and resilient infrastructure to ensure that their services are available 24/7, and sensitive customer data is secure. AWS cloud infrastructure provides the financial services sector with the necessary tools to achieve these objectives.

Innovation is the order of the day in the AWS ecosystem, with new services and improvements to existing services being released on a regular basis. AWS offers both great breadth and depth of services including ones that can greatly benefit the financial services sector.

Cloud infrastructure can help organisations modernise their infrastructure, drive business growth and very importantly meet the rapidly changing customer behaviours. The AWS Cloud Adoption Framework, also known as AWS CAP, helps businesses leverage the AWS experience to achieve digital transformation and accelerate business outcomes (…by harnessing the use of AWS). AWS CAF has best practices in six pillars or perspectives namely, business, people, governance, platform, security and operations. Each of these with its stakeholders that would own or manage the cloud transformation journey. Adhering to this model, financial services organisations will initially identify and subsequently prioritise transformation opportunities, all the way to the transformation, in iterative and incremental fashion.

Banking: Traditional banks of all sizes are under pressure to become more agile and innovative due to the unparalleled pace of change driven by regulatory bodies and customer needs that are increasingly being refined through offerings by neo banks. In addition to helping businesses meet strict security, compliance, and regulatory requirements, AWS enables banks to bring new ideas to market quickly and deliver more elegant consumer experiences.

Payments Gateways and Providers: By processing worldwide digital payments, boosting agility, and scaling to meet erratic demand, payments gateways and providers using AWS redefine the payments sector. They do this by making real-time business decisions, innovating, and reacting to client expectations. The Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard (DSS) compliance is one of the most demanding security criteria that the AWS core infrastructure is built to meet. By cooperating with AWS, payment organisations can build (business applications) with confidence on the most secure and robust cloud.

EMIs: E-Wallets and E-Money institutions are utilising AWS to find new opportunities, reconsider and redesign operational models, and put into place cost-cutting strategies that boost productivity. Accelerated go-to-market, enhanced security, improved customer experiences, and better data-driven decision-making are some of the outcomes.

Insurance: The weight of outdated IT must be balanced with lucrative expansion for today’s insurance companies. In response, many insurers are using a two-pronged strategy to foster innovation. First, they are modernising their data centres by migrating applications to AWS and paying off technical debt, freeing up IT budgets for change and expansion. Second, they are providing small teams of architects and developers with access to cloud services, enabling them to provide innovative solutions to the business more quickly. AWS services enable insurance companies to create innovative digital client experiences more quickly, modernise or implement more adaptable core systems, use data to develop novel methods for assessing risk and delivering customised insurance policies, and swiftly react to legislative changes.

When these organisations are international, AWS can be harnessed, so that core business applications are available to client-bases in multiple geographic locations. AWS’ global infrastructure footprint ensures that customers can achieve high levels of availability and performance, with minimal latency, and reduced risk of downtime. AWS provides customers, in the financial services field, with a wide range of security and compliance certifications, including SOC 1, SOC 2, SOC 3, PCI DSS, HIPAA, to mention but a few. This enables institutions to deploy their applications in compliance with the relevant regulatory frameworks, ensuring that customer data is secure and protected, at all times.

AWS provides customers with the ability to leverage services such as AWS Auto Scaling, AWS Trusted Advisor, and AWS Cost Explorer, enabling customers to optimise their infrastructure costs and achieve cost savings.

Advantages of AWS CAF 

In a nutshell the main benefits of AWS CAF are the improved reliability and therefore enhanced performance, the increased transparency and governance performance, the growth in revenue (and revenue streams) due to the facilitated ease of entering new market segments and the reduction of operational costs.

This is achievable via the process of envisioning (identification), prioritisation, alignment, launch and, scaling (ongoing). 56Bit partners with clients throughout the experience of cloud transformation from realisation of the business / technical leaders through to the deployment and scaling of the environment and applications. Discover more. Start minimising costs and maximising performance –

Contact Us today. 

iGaming Operators – enhance business resilience through AWS

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5 Ways iGaming operators can enhance business resilience through AWS. 

iGaming operators are under huge pressure to ensure their online platforms and software systems are continuously available. Downtime costs tens of thousands of euro and leads to negative brand sentiment and reputational damage. From a back-office perspective, the number of challenges is ever growing – the increase of remote working, complexity of distributed systems and frequent releases all contribute to the risk of potential disruptions.

In this blog we will present five ways in which iGaming operators can enhance business resilience through AWS.

Move to the Cloud

Human error at data centre level accounts to around three thirds of the incidents leading to service outage. Moving to the cloud reduces this risk. AWS invested deeply in infrastructure resilience. Resilience is instilled in the design and operational model end-to-end. Upward of 84 availability zones with various data centres each, scattered around the globe, guarantee that the AWS cloud can withstand disruptions of any scale. When moving to the cloud it is crucial to understand the responsibilities of the provider and the client (i.e. share responsibility model), as they are shared.

Automate everything

Manual processes are prone to human error and therefore we can safely say they introduce risk. Automation should span from backups to testing. Automation underpins the world’s most resilient architectures worldwide. Automation will help improve operational efficiency and introduce stability. The recovery time objective will surely be shortened. Efficiency is directly linked to automation. Heavily relying on an individual’s expertise and ability is risky to business continuity. Reviewing code before deployment is paramount. Automating such processes with machine learning tools for reviewing code, will aid in automating the said process and optimise the application performance. Automated code reviews in AWS proactively identify and fix issues which are key for deployments to be a success in terms of performance, security and compliance requirements.

Test for unknowns and exceptions 

Testing is not a one-off task. It is continuous testing which helps IT teams identify and understand how systems react to unknowns in specific scenarios. Fault injection experiments and chaos engineering (i.e. breaking things purposely) are two common practices to create real-world context to uncover vulnerabilities, hidden bugs, blind spots and even performance bottlenecks (that are hard to find in distributed systems).

AWS used this methodology to increase resilience and ensure readiness under the most adverse circumstances. In addition another used testing methodology is resilience ‘game days’ which simulate failure to test the response of systems, teams and processes. iGaming operators can carry out ‘game days’ with replicas of their AWS production environments.

IT is a never-ending journey

New trends. New threats. New methodologies. New technology. It is an ever evolving space. AWS is fully embarked on striving to continuously improve its infrastructure, service design, operational model and mechanisms. Support for iGaming operators will enhance resilience. It will offer the best architectural and operational best practices services, tooling and guidance. Through rigorous partnership programmes, partners such as 56Bit will have an undisputed professional level that will help customers, such as iGaming operators, in their day-to-day operations and in their overarching strategic direction. 

Keep an eye on metrics

Understanding how your systems are performing at any giving point helps in achieving operational (and therefore resilience) excellence. Collect data and thoroughly analyse it to extract trends and in certain cases detect and resolve issues related to application performance and availability. The latter data will aid in improving UX and CX. Data is fact. Data is a single source of truth. Thus it is key to collect it to have a true picture of your applications’ health posture.

By moving the systems to the AWS cloud, the dependance on physical hardware is reduced. This is cost effective and less prone to failure. Scaling up or down is perfectly doable, cushioning traffic spikes in punters volume. Disaster recovery and security of iGaming operators’ applications are improved with services such as Amazon GuardDuty. AWS has a myriad of certifications, such as, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, and SOC 2 – this will help igaming operators adhere to regulatory requirements when handling highly sensitive data.

Speak to us today to understand how we can help you maintain a frictionless iGaming experience for your players.

Considerations when shifting from MS Azure to AWS

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Factors to consider when shifting from MS Azure to AWS.

Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services, commonly referred to as AWS, are undoubtedly two of the main cloud platforms available in the market. Each has their pros and cons, and have a number of similarities and differences. In this blog post we’ll be delving into the main factors to consider when shifting from MS Azure to AWS.

Cost Element

AWS offers a number of pricing models, such as, pay-as-you-go, reserved instances, and spot instances. Base your decision on the usage (or forecasted usage) and workload requirements of your suite of applications, to determine which pricing model is the most cost-effective for your scenario.

AWS also offers cost management tools such as AWS Budgets and Usage Reports that can help you monitor your spending and optimise your usage, on the go. This is a strong tool since it helps you curb overspending on services you do not actually need

Range of Services

Albeit similar, one has to consider the workload and requirements of the shift. The workload will determine which services are must-haves for your needs. AWS offers a wide range of services, including compute, storage, networking, database, and analytics. They also offer emerging technology services such as the highly acclaimed AI and machine learning services, IoT services, and security and compliance services. 

Migration Strategy

The migration process from MS Azure to AWS is not simple and straightforward. It can be complex. It is never recommended to shift in an ad hoc manner. One should have a well-defined migration strategy in place spanning the tools, processes, and resources required to migrate your applications and data to AWS.

The most commonly used migration tools and services, offered by AWS, including AWS Database Migration Service, Application Discovery Service, the AWS Migration Acceleration Program and AWS Server Migration Service. At 56 Bit we will help your team evaluate these tools and services to determine which ones are most appropriate for your migration project needs.

Rate of Evolution and Availability of Support

Finally, you should consider the level of support provided by AWS when shifting from MS Azure. AWS offers a range of support options, including basic support, developer support, business support, and enterprise support. You should evaluate your support requirements to determine which level of support is appropriate for your needs. In addition, having a proficient partner is key to the success of such migrations.

AWS also offers a range of training and certification programs to help you and your team become proficient in using their services. Make sure you take advantage of these programs to ensure that you can effectively use AWS to meet your business needs.

In general, AWS provides greater open source community interoperability through the likes of Jenkins, GitHub and Linux, whereas on the other hand MS Azure is easy to use and integrated frictionlessly with Microsoft’s tools and technologies.

AWS has more than 1 million customers worldwide and has over 13 years experience. It offers top notch services that can help scale and grow your business including compute, storage and delivery. Three core benefits of AWS are: that it is one of the longest standing global cloud solutions, it is an easy to use application hosting and one can utilise Amazon’s identity and security services.

AWS Application Migration Service (AWS MGN)

With customers running Microsoft workloads on AWS for more than 12 years, AWS have the most experience with Microsoft applications in the cloud and can deliver performance, security, reliability, and cost savings.

AWS Windows Migration Accelerator, also known as AWS MGN, helps organisations minimise the cost of migration when you accelerate the migration of Windows servers utilising AWS MGN. Until end of year (31-12-2023), clients using Application Migration Service to migrate a minimum of 40 servers to AWS in one month (including a minimum of 15 Windows servers) may be eligible to receive $200 AWS promotional credit per Windows Server. In case, you migrate upward of 80 servers (including 25 Windows servers) in one calendar month, the discount will be increased to $250 AWS promotional credit for each Windows Server that is migrated to AWS using AWS MGN.

Discover more on how we can lift and shift your applications from MS Azure to AWS without business disruption. Set an exploratory meeting with us today!