SS&C Blue Prism

Key solution components are:

• Infrastructure as Code: Terraform was used to script and automate the deployment of the environment. Applying modern infrastructure as code methods both assists with inventory management of the solution and importantly ensures consistency of deployment where platform changes are required.
• Landing Zone & Account Factory: An Account Factory with customisations for AWS Control Tower combined AWS Control Tower and other highly available, trusted AWS services to help Blue Prism more quickly set up a secure, multi-account AWS environment using AWS best practices including Security governance and compliance frameworks such as NIST and CIS.
• Secure Operating Procedures: A review of Cloud operations resulted in greater use of AWS Systems Manager. In addition to more common services such as automated patching, Blue Prism implemented the use of Session Manager into their day-to-day operations to enhance security around maintenance-level access to the platform.
• Platform Right-Sizing: By combining the skills of both development and operations personnel, Blue Prism was able to establish a practice for routinely reviewing the sizing requirements of the solution to ensure alignment to customers’ individual environments. This means that AWS EC2 and RDS elements of the Cloud solution operate effectively, delivering resilient and highly available resources without incurring unnecessary cost.
• Migration of established RPA platform from Azure/On-prem to AWS: Consisting of Microsoft Windows Servers and SQL Databases. Utilising managed services wherever possible to modernise VMs replaced with EC2 instances and Microsoft SQL Server migrated to RDS instances.

The Benefits

The successful delivery of the end-to-end project delivered a number of technical and business benefits to Blue Prism:

• DevOps practices underpinned by the AWS Well-Architected Framework have ensured that Blue Prism is aligned to best practice in the various facets of Cloud deployment including security, performance, and resiliency of the platform. Importantly, by aligning to the AWS principles of operational excellence, Blue Prism is guided by sound DevOps practices, working with both native AWS and third-party tooling.
• Using guidance from the Well-Architected Framework, Blue Prism were able to implement new ways of working and align the best practice principles of “operational excellence”. Monitoring services implemented through AWS CloudWatch constantly provides the operations teams with the data to ensure that the platform is performant and meeting the demanding requirements of its platform and customer use.
• Successful knowledge transfer and training activity significantly improve the skill-sets of the Blue Prism technical team.