Building a hosted offering for bricks & mortar customers (a.k.a. using AWS without the cool toys)

1. Building a hosted offering for bricks & mortar customers
(a.k.a. Using AWS without the cool toys)
Presented by: Brian Murray
Presented on: 2016.03.23, AWS Dublin User Group

2. © FINEOS CORPORATION 2
Obligatory Intro Slide
Founded in Ireland in 1993 – now 420 staff worldwide
FINEOS provides core software solutions to the Life, Accident &
Health industry
Java-based application
Traditionally deployed on-premises
www.FINEOS.com
We’re hiring!

3. © FINEOS CORPORATION 3
From Bricks & Mortar To Cloud
I AWS & AWSUG, but it’s like a toy shop
 We operate on a much more basic infrastructure level
First opportunity to offer fully hosted & managed solution in 2013
Key Requirements
 Data Sovereignty
 Compliance
 Security
 Availability
Replicating traditional on-premises
functionality a.k.a. forklifting

4. © FINEOS CORPORATION 4
What AWS offers

5. © FINEOS CORPORATION 5
What we use

6. © FINEOS CORPORATION 6
What we built

7. © FINEOS CORPORATION 7
Design
Insurance is a heavily regulated industry
Security First
 Sample Security Questionnaire: 1,550 questions; ~400 on ‘Cloud’
Availability
Cloud Friendly Products?
New to AWS? Get help!
 Hire in skills (good luck with that!)
 AWS Solution Architects &
Account Managers
 Consulting Partners
 Community (that includes you guys)

8. © FINEOS CORPORATION 8
Security
VPC
 Public & Private Subnets
Security Groups/Whitelisting
OS Updates
 Off by default (don’t fill your disks!)
Identity & Access Management
 Users, Roles, MFA
Log Log Log – CloudTrail
Password Management
Audit Yourself

9. © FINEOS CORPORATION 9
Availability
BREAKING NEWS: AWS is not invincible!
Monitor Everything
Script & Automate
Use AWS Services
Use RDS
Autoscale across AZs
Create Rolling Snapshots
Get Data Off EC2
Abstract any ‘configuration’

10. © FINEOS CORPORATION 10
Use Third Party Services
New Relic
 Heartbeat, Application, and Server Monitoring
Cloudability
 Cost Waste Management
Skeddly
 Schedule Start/Stops (Non-Production)
{Insert Name Here}
 Password Management
Education (!= Certification)
 ACloudGuru, AWS

11. © FINEOS CORPORATION 11
Ongoing Challenges/Annoyances
Skills!
24x7
Automation
Licensing
Army of AMIs (CU, Sales, Projects, DevOps)
Keeping Up With New Features
 Elastic File System
 Database Migration Service
 Directory Service
 Inspector
 WorkMail
 Lambda

12. © FINEOS CORPORATION 12
What we built
Operating on the same
level? Let’s keep in touch.
Have you experiences you
can share with the
community?

13. © FINEOS CORPORATION 13
Did I mention we are hiring?

14. © FINEOS CORPORATION 14
That’s it – I’m done

15. Thank You.
For more information, please contact
Brian.Murray@FINEOS.com
@brianomuiri
https://twitter.com/brianomuiri/lists/scamall
@AWSUserGroup
15