Client	Industry	Challenge	Solution Focus
Technology Company	Enterprise Software & Cloud Hosting	Manual patching and configuration drift across a fleet of 60+ EC2 instances	AWS Systems Manager for Automated Patching, Configuration, and Secure Access Export to Sheets

Client Overview and Business Challenge

A technology company operates a large-scale, global SaaS platform built on over 500 Amazon EC2 instances running multiple operating systems (Windows and various Linux distributions). Their primary goal was to ensure maximum security and compliance while maintaining high availability for their customers.

The Business Challenge:

• Inconsistent Patching and Compliance: Patching was a manual, server-by-server process executed monthly. This led to configuration drift, leaving a significant percentage of the fleet vulnerable and non-compliant.
• High Operational Cost and Risk: The manual patching effort consumed over 40 staff-hours per month and was highly susceptible to human error, resulting in frequent unscheduled reboots and service interruptions.
• Insecure Access: Engineers relied on traditional SSH keys and bastion hosts for troubleshooting, creating security overhead and complex audit trails.
• Lack of Visibility: There was no single, centralized dashboard to quickly assess the patch status or inventory of the entire fleet.

Company needed a unified, automated solution to manage its instance fleet securely and efficiently without manual server logins.

Discovery, Planning, and Solution Design

DevOps TechLab designed a streamlined operations framework centered on AWS Systems Manager to standardize, secure, and automate fleet management.

Key Client Priorities:

1. Automation: Eliminate manual patching and configuration tasks.
2. Security: Remove the need for SSH/RDP ports and bastion hosts.
3. Compliance: Maintain a verifiable, consistent patch compliance rate above 98%.

Solution Architecture: Centralized Ops Management

The solution focused on deploying the SSM Agent across the entire fleet and leveraging multiple capabilities within Systems Manager.

Systems Manager Capability	Role in Solution	Business Impact
Patch Manager	Defined Patch Baselines to automatically approve and install critical/security patches. Scheduled a Maintenance Window for patch execution every Tuesday outside business hours.	Ensured consistent, automated patching with zero overlap into production hours.
State Manager	Created Associations to enforce a desired configuration state (e.g., standard firewall rules, specific agent versions) across all instances, actively preventing configuration drift.	Guaranteed fleet-wide standardization and eliminated manual configuration errors.
Session Manager	Used to provide secure, auditable, and browser-based access to instances. All SSH/RDP inbound ports were closed, and access logging was enabled in Amazon S3.	Removed security risks associated with open inbound ports, bastion hosts, and SSH keys.
Inventory	Automated collection of metadata (installed applications, OS configuration, running services) from the entire fleet daily.	Provided a single, real-time, central source of truth for audit and compliance reporting

Outcome and Benefits

The implementation of AWS Systems Manager transformed GlobalSoft Tech’s operations model, leading to massive efficiency gains and improved security posture.

Benefit Area	Result Achieved	Business Impact
Operational Efficiency	80% Reduction in Manual Effort	IT staff time previously spent on patching and troubleshooting (40+ hours/month) was reduced to less than 8 hours for oversight, allowing for focus on development and innovation.
Service Reliability	Near-Zero Unscheduled Downtime	Automated and controlled patching via Maintenance Windows eliminated manual errors and configuration conflicts that previously caused unplanned outages.
Security & Compliance	100% Secure Access	All instances were managed without exposing inbound ports to the internet, and compliance reporting is now instantly available through the Compliance Dashboard.
Cost Savings	Elimination of Bastion Hosts	Removed the need for and the associated compute costs of maintaining bastion hosts across multiple environments. Export to Sheets

Conclusion:

By adopting a unified approach with AWS Systems Manager, GlobalSoft Tech successfully shifted from a high-risk, manual operational model to an automated, secure, and fully auditable framework. This modernization resulted in significant time and cost savings while achieving industry-leading security and compliance standards.