Case Study:
Telrock’s Expansion into AWS Public Cloud
Telrock Systems Inc: Global Debt Collection and Recovery SaaS with AWS and Cloudsoft
Technology used
- Control Tower
- EKS
- AWS Systems Manager
- AWS Config
- SecurityHub
- Guard Duty
- AWS Backup
- AWS Landing Zone
About Telrock Systems Inc.
TTelrock is a global technology provider specializing in modern SaaS, cloud-native end-to-end consumer debt collection software, serving Banks, Finance Companies, Credit Unions, Utilities, Telecom, Healthcare, Government, Collection Agencies, Business Process Outsourcing & Debt Buyers.
Their flagship product is Optimus, an enterprise-wide collections and recovery debt management platform. Telrock also offers a second solution, SmartConnect, delivering, rapid, no-code design, deployment, and management of business rules, system integration capabilities and omni-channel customer communication.
Telrock primarily operates in North America and United Kingdom, but is actively expanding into other geographical markets (e.g. LATAM, EMEA, APAC).
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Telrock’s Strategy
Several years ago, Telrock made the decision to deploy it’s cloud-native SaaS offerings on private Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI) running within Colocation (Colo) datacentres (Equinix).
At that time, public cloud adoption within financial services industry was just starting and Telrock’s clients in North America and the United Kingdom were more comfortable procuring SaaS solutions from companies operating privately owned infrastructure, driven in the main by security & regulatory compliance considerations.
With the increasing acceptance and use of public cloud hosting options within financial services and globally across other sectors, Telrock made the strategic decision to expand the hosting of its SaaS products to AWS and leverage the multitude of benefits that this brings.
Telrock’s strategic expansion into AWS is two-fold. Firstly, as Telrock’s existing private cloud hardware reaches end of life (EOL), Telrock will systematically migrate workloads running in these Colo datacentres to AWS. And secondly, all new clients, both with Telrock’s primary markets (Norh America and United Kingdom) and globally (LATAM, EMEA, APAC) will be onboarded directly into AWS.
The Outcomes
The ability to deploy all components of the environment using fully automated provisioning; i.e. Infrastructure as Code (IAC).
Strong focus on security and regulatory compliance, in particular Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and Service Organization Controls 2 (SOC2).
Separation/Isolation of client environments into their own Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), but with centralised management; e.g. Telrock’s clients (e.g. Banks) much prefer complete data segregation of their hosting environments.
Auto-scalability, with the ability to horizontally scale microservices and underlying infrastructure, both up and down on demand.
High availability and hot-hot disaster recovery; ability to distribute clustered services across availability zones.
Telrock was looking for an experienced technology partner with the pre-requisite AWS competencies, willing to engage in a highly pragmatic “hands-on” approach to delivery – one that would work as an extension of the Telrock IT team to build out the desired solution in AWS.
The Solution
Cloudsoft, an Advanced Tier AWS Partner with AWS competencies in Microsoft workloads on AWS and DevOps was engaged by Telrock to assist with the initial migration of workloads from one of Telrock’s US Colo datacentres (marked for closure, due to EOL hardware) to AWS, and the development of the IaC platform upon which Telrock is now basing its expansion plans.
The project was divided into phases:
Assessment Phase:
Cloudsoft partnered with Telrock's stakeholders to understand the potential benefits of AWS, including detailed cost modelling. This phase resulted in a business case for Telrock's leadership team, supported by AWS funding.
Mobilize Phase:
Cloudsoft and Telrock built the new cloud architecture and prepared workloads for migration. This phase was carefully planned to minimize disruption and was also supported by AWS funding.
Migrate Phase:
Following the successful completion of the Mobilise phase, Telrock and Cloudsoft commenced workload migrations to AWS according to the migration plan.
Primary AWS services used included EKS, EC2, EFS and Systems Manager.
Cloudsoft established a secure and scalable foundation with a well-architected landing zone, including the use of AWS Control Tower, Config Manager, Guard Duty and Security Hub.
Cloudsoft worked closely with Telrock throughout the pre- and post-migration phases, enabling Telrock to safely migrate workloads to AWS.
The new cloud environment has further strengthened Telrock’s security posture and allowed them to continue to maintain robust PCI DSS And SOC2 compliance.
A phased migration approach with automation-driven workloads minimized downtime and ensured SLAs were met. Disaster recovery strategies were designed based on load balancing of EKS and other services across AWS availability zones (minimum of 3 within an AWS full region), with multi-region replication (where applicable) being supported for clients who require an extra level of assurance.
A central management plane, hosting Operational Support Systems (OSS), was deployed for Telrock IT staff to monitor, manage and maintain VPCs and assets distributed across AWS regions, using AWS VPC Transit Gateways.
Results and Benefits
With Cloudsoft's assistance, Telrock successfully migrated all workloads deployed on its US Colo datacentre marked for closure to AWS.
But most importantly, through full IAC coverage, Telrock is able to deploy highly scalable and fault-tolerant workloads within AWS, simply and robustly – a fully operational new client VPC can be launched in any AWS full region across the globe within hours!
Telrock has achieved all of its key drivers for expanding into AWS, as aforementioned in “The Challenge” section above, but listed below for convenience:
The ability to deploy all components of the environment using fully automated provisioning; i.e. Infrastructure as Code (IaC).
Strong focus on security and regulatory compliance, in particular Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and Service Organization Controls 2 (SOC2).
Separation/Isolation of client environments into their own Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs), but with centralised management; e.g. Telrock’s clients (e.g. Banks) much prefer complete data segregation of their hosting environments.
Auto-scalability, with the ability to horizontally scale microservices and underlying infrastructure, both up and down on demand.
High availability and hot-hot disaster recovery; ability to distribute clustered services across availability zones.
Future milestones include migration of further workloads as more hardware approaches end-of-life and expansion into other regions (e.g. LATAM, EMEA, APAC) outside of Telrock’s primary markets (North America and United Kingdom).
Additional Highlights
Telrock's technical teams were actively engaged throughout the project and significantly developed their AWS skills. With Cloudsoft’s help during the migration and subsequent modernisation, Telrock were able to meet their goal of having the skills and operational readiness to manage the AWS workloads in-house.
About Cloudsoft
Cloudsoft, an Advanced Tier AWS Partner, offers expertise and engineering resources to help customers navigate modern cloud technologies and cloud-native software practices. They hold AWS competencies in microservices workloads on AWS and DevOps.
“Expanding our SaaS operations into AWS with Cloudsoft has been transformative for Telrock.”
"We've gained the ability to deploy quickly and robustly across the globe, while maintaining the pre-requisite security posture for working within highly regulated verticals and offering clients the level of data isolation they desire, enabling Telrock to accelerate our growth and better serve current and future markets.
The seamless transition and ongoing support have exceeded our expectations, and we're now confident in our ability to adapt to future demands."
- John Hotti, Chief Information Officer, Telrock Systems Inc.