Challenges

A leading financial service provider required a secure and efficient way to migrate workloads from its on-premises infrastructure to AWS while ensuring high availability and compliance with financial regulations. During their cloud adoption journey, they needed to:

• Migrate critical servers from on-premises to AWS with minimal downtime.
• Seamlessly provision users and grant RDP access without manual intervention.
• Join migrated servers to their existing on-premises Active Directory (AD) domain for centralized authentication.
• Establish a robust disaster recovery (DR) setup to ensure business continuity using Elastic Disaster Recovery Service (EDRS).

The client needed a solution that was automated, secure, and compliant with stringent financial industry standards.

Searce Solution

The client partnered with Searce to simplify server management and streamline migration using AWS Systems Manager (SSM). Key implementations:

1. User Provisioning

   • Used SSM Run Command to execute a PowerShell script.
   • Automatically created local users on migrated servers.
   • Enabled secure RDP access through Fleet Manager, eliminating the need for manual setup.

2. Domain Join

   • Leveraged SSM Session Manager for interactive access.
   • Securely joined servers to the on-premises Active Directory domain, ensuring consistency in authentication and policy management.

3. Disaster Recovery Setup

   • Integrated AWS Systems Manager with Elastic Disaster Recovery Service (EDRS).
   • Simplified failover and failback processes during DR testing.
   • Improved resilience by enabling near real-time replication from on-premises to AWS.

Business Impact

• Faster Migration: Automated provisioning reduced manual effort and accelerated server onboarding.
• Seamless Domain Integration: Ensured migrated servers aligned with corporate AD policies.
• Improved Security: Centralized RDP access via Fleet Manager removed dependency on exposed credentials.
• Robust Disaster Recovery: Leveraged EDRS with SSM automation to establish a scalable, resilient DR environment.
• Operational Efficiency: Reduced administrative overhead through centralized server management.

By leveraging AWS Systems Manager, the client streamlined its server migration journey and strengthened disaster recovery capabilities. From automated user provisioning to secure domain integration and centralized RDP access, the solution enhanced operational efficiency while ensuring compliance and resilience. This implementation aligns with their vision of delivering secure, scalable, and technology-driven wealth management solutions for its clients.