PAPS AWS Platform Raised to the Next Level with AWS EC2 and AWS RDS by TerraAlto

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PAPS AWS Platform Raised to the Next Level with AWS EC2 and AWS RDS by TerraAlto

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Executive Summary

Public Authority Pension Services Limited (PAPS) works with the Public Sector in Ireland to improve their understanding and administration of the ever-increasing complexity of public sector pension schemes in Ireland. To deliver cloud enhanced pension services PAPS chose senior AWS partner, TerraAlto, due to their proven track record in providing bespoke on-demand cloud computing platforms.

About the Customer

Established in 2009, Public Authority Pension Services Limited (PAPS) is one of the leading experts in public sector superannuation in Ireland. PAPS was founded in response to the growing need for technical and administrative support for public sector pension administrators and managers. Since then, PAPS has grown exponentially and currently provides support to more than seventy public sector bodies on the management of their pension schemes. PAPS are not only responsible for assisting bodies with the day-to-day administration of their pension schemes in terms of; benefit calculation, service verification, estimates of entitlements, costs of purchasing notional service and assessment of entitlement to professional added years but are also responsible for; technical support, training administrators, benefit statements, pension information sessions for members, public service pension reform and scheme audits. The PAPS team also delivers on-site pension information sessions to public sector staff, helping to keep members informed of their benefits and any new developments in public sector pension schemes. In addition, PAPS is the leading provider of training to public sector pension administrators. PAPS not only provide a comprehensive range of technical pensions expertise and administrative support to those responsible for the management and administration of Public Sector Pension Schemes but are committed to providing a comprehensive, expert, and timely service to their clients when it comes to their pension administration needs.

Customer Challenge

PAPS needed a low cost, reliable digital infrastructure which would enable ease of use
Data security and privacy risks
Cloud-based IT services may put data beyond the reach of regulators who may wish to impose new training requirements on pension services to address risks as well as build their own internal capacities to supervise these risks
The difficulty of implementing digitally led interactions without losing the personal touch
The risk of fraudulent activity, associated costs, and reputational damage
Convoluted IT frameworks and costly outdated systems that provide an inadequate delivery infrastructure to support cloud-based services.

Why PAPS Chose TerraAlto

PAPS has always been 100% cloud hosted in AWS and it was TerraAlto’ s extensive experience in ensuring secure, cost-effective, flexible, open, elastic, compliant, sophisticated and scalable usage of AWS services from foundational level forward for high sensitivity organizations with a mobile workforce that made them uniquely qualified to take on this challenge.

Expertise: As an advanced consulting partner dedicated to AWS since 2013, with significant experience in working with global brands hosting websites on AWS, PAPS were confident that TerraAlto had the AWS knowledge and expertise they were searching for
Service-Fit: TerraAlto’ s comprehensive set of services included everything PAPS were looking for in an AWS managed service partner: 24×7 AWS monitoring and incident response, security management and ongoing application release support and maintenance.
Local Presence: With PAPS and TerraAlto both based in Dublin, the convenience of being able to meet face-to-face when needed also played its part in PAP’s decision to partner with TerraAlto

Partner (TerraAlto) Solution

TerraAlto provides PAPS with a Managed Service solution that ensures the PAPS AWS environment remains available, performant, secure, well-maintained, and cost-optimized as well as providing cutting-edge process automation, reduced administration costs and improved data quality.

This comprehensive suite of managed services includes the following:

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (AWS EC2): provides secure, resizable compute capacity in the cloud. It’s simple web service interface affords PAPS complete control of their computing resources run on Amazon’s proven computing environment with secure remote access from any location
Amazon Relational Database Service (AWS RDS): makes it easy to set up, operate and scale a relational database in the cloud. It provides cost-efficient and resizable capacity while automating time-consuming administration tasks resulting in the fast performance, high availability, security, and compatibility PAPS require
Service Desk: The first point of contact for PAPS AWS users who wish to raise incidents, access requests and change requests with the TerraAlto managed service team.
Availability and Performance monitoring: Ensures that AWS availability and performance metrics are monitored on an ongoing basis and that any events and/or breaches of acceptable tolerances are responded to 24 x 7.
Security Monitoring: All identified security threats to the PAPS AWS environment are actioned expediently.
Incident Response and Resolution: PAP’s AWS-related incidents and problems are identified and resolved in a timely manner. New incidents are identified through automated monitoring and alerting, as well as from directly reported incidents from PAPS AWS users through the TerraAlto Service Desk. TerraAlto cloud engineers are available to respond to incidents 24×7 within pre-agreed SLAs.
Database and Instance Backup and Recovery: All PAPS data residing on AWS is backed up regularly and is available for restoration in line with PAP’s Recovery Point Objectives and Recovery Time Objectives.
Capacity Management: Utilizes real-time monitoring and threshold-based alerting to manage the capacity of AWS instances, disks and databases supporting PAPS workloads.
Security Access Management: Ensures that access to PAP’s AWS resources remains restricted to authorized individuals and groups using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM).
Cost Optimization: On-going proactive monitoring of PAP’s AWS costs to identify and drive reductions in AWS costs.
AWS Configuration Maintenance: TerraAlto are fully responsible for all aspects of AWS configuration maintenance including DNS management, SSL administration and whitelisting with all changes being implemented in compliance with PAP’s change management policy.

Results and Benefits

TerraAlto delivers a stable platform with secure, reliable, and cost-effective managed services to PAP’s business

AWS EC2: enables seven times fewer downtime hours than the next largest cloud provider and has 275 instances for all PAPS potential business needs
Amazon RDS: is easy to administer, highly scalable, available, durable, fast, secure, and inexpensive
Enabling Focus on Business Growth: With production environment maintenance outsourced to TerraAlto, PAPS have been able to focus their IT and business teams on application innovation, safe in the knowledge that the availability and security of their AWS environment are being managed by an AWS-certified Managed Service Provider.
Scalability: Considering the inherent scalability of the AWS platform, along with the flexibility with which TerraAlto can deploy operational capacity, PAPS now have a platform and a partner capable of supporting their evolving needs
High Availability: The highly available, fault-tolerant architecture of the AWS solution architecture coupled with TerraAlto’ s SLA-driven managed service means that Pap’s website remains available for users 24×7.

About TerraAlto

TerraAlto is an AWS Advanced Consulting and MSP Partner with an AWS DevOps Competency, who help organizations build and manage advanced solutions utilizing AWS services for big data, IoT and enterprise data platforms. With an extensive experience of delivering greenfield implementations, migrations, and application innovations, TerraAlto have worked with a wide range of client organizations ranging from tech start-ups to large global organizations.

As an approved member of the AWS Managed Service Provider Partner Program, TerraAlto provides 24-7 managed services for AWS environments in Europe and in Asia (including China). As an active participant in the AWS Well-Architected Framework Program, TerraAlto helps their clients to ensure secure and compliant usage of AWS services including the building of automated compliance frameworks for enterprise-wide exception alerting and reporting.

TerraAlto is known and recommended for their flexibility of engagement and quick delivery.

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