U.S. Department of Transportation

U.S. Department of Transportation

Summary

When we started the project, the DOT had dozens of existing AWS accounts created by business units and managed by various outside vendors. These accounts were not following standard guidelines for security, identity management, logging, and networking; one account had even been recently breached. When we ended, the organization had standard and supportable processes, increased speed and visibility, higher security and control, and higher end-user capabilities – all at a lower cost.

Challenge

The Department of Transportation (DOT) desired to move to the cloud, with many individual business units having already done so with widely varying results. Standardization and efficiency were virtually nonexistent, leading to challenges taking solutions through to completion such as security, networking, billing, and cost management. In addition, the DOT needed to provide a safe home for the diffusion of accounts already in place without having at that time skilled resources on staff. The business goal of the project was to provide a centrally managed, multi-account AWS environment that consistently follows AWS best practices and adheres to DOT policies.

Solution

Enquizit worked with the DOT to create a centrally managed solution which provided management of all core services, including standardized account creation, networking, billing and overall management and operations. In addition, application enablement services such as code pipelines and DevSecOps processes were created to create and manage applications and infrastructure as code while allowing simple updates whenever desired. We also integrated into the DOT’s Identity Management and billing solutions to remove some of the common roadblocks for implementations and limited services to those which were allowed for the department’s use based on their security standards – in this case, FedRAMP Moderate. We also applied security and application standards to a DOT-specific server image, which allowed automated builds and auto-scaling of systems to be done automatically while maintaining standards. With the standard solution in place, Enquizit created on-boarding processes, and worked with the various business areas on moving their workloads to the new environment, ensuring security was applied or exceptions granted where appropriate.

After implementation, Enquizit was retained to support and operate the DOT’s cloud operations, while simultaneously training and enabling other DOT staff as they gained skills and experience.

Result

Thanks to Enquizit’s efforts, the creation of new accounts was able to be completed in less than a day, and machines which used to take weeks to months to create were now available in less than 10 minutes and could even auto-deploy with the latest application already installed and configured. In addition, there was cost savings through taking advantage of lower cost purchasing options, and higher visibility into where those costs were being incurred as well direct bill-back options so the right areas were paying for their usage of the systems. All this while security was increased and higher control provided to those creating and using the services.

Technologies

AWS tools including Landing Zone, Security Hub, Inspector, GuardDuty, Cloudtrail, IAM, EC2, KMS, RDS, S3, SSO, STS, Config, Trusted Advisor, Well-Architected Tool, Artifact. An Agile/SCRUM governance methodology was utilized for project management.

About Enquizit

Enquizit was founded in 2002 specializing in providing traditional IT outsourcing and application development services. As of 2011, the company shifted to Cloud services focusing on higher education and public sector organizations. In the last seven years Enquizit has gained a comprehensive knowledge of cloud migration, optimization, application modernization, and managed services. We have developed expertise in all things cloud and are currently the only 8(a) business that possesses all five AWS Partner Network Certifications and Competencies (Authorized Reseller, Trusted Government Partner, and Advanced Consulting Partner, with Government and Education Competencies), making us uniquely poised to deliver the highest level of professional cloud services. Enquizit keeps up with its services as AWS progresses and provides additional offerings. Enquizit and AWS Professional Services operate collaboratively and seamlessly as a single unit to provide comprehensive cloud-oriented solutions.

Additionally, Enquizit brings extensive experience in the areas of Agile software development and modernization, cloud solutions, and project management. Our dedication to client mission and application of industry best practices such as ITIL, Lean Six Sigma, and CAF have enabled our organization to realize the vision of our clients. Throughout our 15 years of providing cost-effective IT solutions that empowered our clients with the tools to drive and grow their business, we have maintained a 100% client satisfaction score derived from client surveys and continuous evaluations of our work.

Customer:

U.S. Department of Transportation

Project Title:

Cloud Transformation

Prime and Partners:

Enquizit and AWS