3 Steps to Success in the Cloud

We have reached a pivotal point in the world of information technology (IT) where collecting data is at an all-time high. We now have the ability to access endless amounts of information right at our fingertips, making cloud computing essential in managing the extensive and ever-increasing volume of digital data that is created every second. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) recently adopted a cloud methodology to improve records management and strengthen electronic records and email management throughout their organization. They have achieved automated managed services around reporting, configuration, backups, security monitoring and provisioning, all while delivering a scalable, repeatable and auditable process. You too can achieve a successful cloud migration by following a few key steps.

1. Select the right managed services provider

NARA selected InfoReliance Solutions as their Cloud Managed Services Provider. As an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Premier Consulting Partner and Audited AWS Managed Services Provider, InfoReliance is a proud member of a select group of AWS providers that have achieved Premier Partner status (1 of 27 in the U.S. out of 40,000 AWS Partners). Premier Partners have a deep bench of AWS trained and certified individuals who are constantly innovating ways to drive customer success.

“InfoReliance demonstrated [an] outstanding performance level that was significantly in excess of anticipated achievements and is commendable as an example for others. Their performance far exceeds the performance levels of excellent without commensurate additional costs to the Government.” --NARA

InfoReliance provides Tier 1 resale, advanced consulting, full migration factory capabilities, and expertly managed services. Over the last five years, AWS has selected InfoReliance to develop, deploy, and manage their cloud platforms as custom solutions. These offerings encompass the full catalog of all Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) cloud computing solutions, as well as professional and managed cloud services.

2. Develop a strategy

NARA wanted to execute a cloud strategy to address two major objectives: 1. Separate the responsibilities between governance, development and infrastructure; and 2. Optimize cloud computing costs through the selection of on-demand infrastructure and managed services.

To achieve NARA’s goals, InfoReliance has established roles and Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to ensure that the development team has the ability to request resource support through email and the web, project leaders have visibility into the resources consumed by their team, and weekly/monthly reports show the current and aggregated costs for the duration of the project. InfoReliance is educating NARA on industry best practices which is encouraging project managers to proactively manage costs by shutting down inactive resources and becoming stakeholders in project resource optimization. What does this mean for NARA? Not only are the SLAs constantly monitored and escalated when necessary, but also the managed services approach is routinely decreasing costs, whereby NARA only pays for those services when needed.

With significant progress on cost control, NARA is able to focus their attention on critical security and governance. They have established bi-weekly meetings to discuss escalations, future visibility and critical needs solutions. To prioritize security and architecture, InfoReliance professionally architected NARA’s Web-to-Cloud to be a highly available, scalable, and secure system that includes monthly security monitoring that alerts the development team to take immediate action on open security ports.

“InfoReliance has demonstrated an outstanding performance by working with NARA to identify through assessments of our requirements the most suitable methodologies we should use to reduce storage cost per use through cloud provisioning.” –NARA

Customers like NARA are also learning that managing and optimizing AWS billing and attributable cost accounting is unique, and therefore, not available out-of-the-box. At no additional cost, InfoReliance offers the InfoReliance Advanced Management Portal (iRAMP), an analytical tool that uses a single screen to provide consolidated visibility into all of NARA’s accounts. With enterprise-level AWS billing, reporting, and chargeback capabilities NARA benefits from even greater cost reduction while receiving extraordinary services from AWS. This provides NARA with the ability to focus on building and operating systems with optimal cost and outstanding reliability.

3. Utilize the correct contract vehicle

NARA is currently utilizing CIO-CS for its cloud acquisition strategy. CIO-CS is an IT commodities and solutions Government-Wide Acquisition Contract (GWAC) that can be used by any federal civilian or Department of Defense (DOD) agency. CIO-CS allows government customers the ability to acquire IT products, services, and solutions from a carefully selected group of Contract Holders, while simultaneously taking advantage of the lowest contract access fee (CAF) in the industry.

NARA has found that the flexible contract design allows for streamlined planning, acquisition and deployment of enterprise IT solutions, while Contract Holders like InfoReliance proactively address policies such as FedRAMP or the Cloud First Initiative by offering solutions such as IaaS and PaaS.

 “InfoReliance has proven to be a strong partner in Business Relations, a factor much needed to ensure the success in the Enterprise Cloud Solutions.” –NARA

Through proper planning and a hands-on approach, NARA has been able to drive down infrastructure costs, automate managed services, and implement governance to the cloud with the use of CIO-CS as their contract vehicle and InfoReliance as their MSP. NARA is now on the path to achieving multiple returns for the duration of their five year contract.

For more information about how InfoReliance can help your organization, please review our whitepaper here.