From 88.3% uptime to five-nines

I founded the IT team at a digital forensics company, moved it from on-prem to a secure cloud, and raised uptime from 88.3% to 99.999%, while building new forensic capability on the same foundation.

client
BlackBag Technologies
role
IT Manager, then Director of Technology and Operations
when
2016 to 2021
drawn by
Jesse Tamburino
ON-PREM · BEFOREserversdatabasessiloed toolsuptime: 88.3%migrateAWS · SECURE CLOUD01Core infrastructureservers + databasesmigratedGlobal file sharesecure, distributedQA + dev tests -96%02Ingestion PoCclustered, for FBIforensics03Training platformvirtual macOS hostsindustry first04CompliancePCI-DSS · NIST 800 · GDPR · CCPAGovCloud Public Sector Partner Program · R&D creditsRESULT05uptime 88.3% → 99.999% · $1M budget, 10% operating savings a year
On-prem to secure cloud, and what the cloud made possible.Hover a step below to find it on the sheet. Scroll sideways on small screens.
99.999%uptime, from 88.3%
-96%QA + dev test time
$1Mbudget, -10%/yr

the problem

A forensics company running on siloed on-prem systems at 88.3% uptime, with customers in law enforcement and government who need chain of custody to hold and systems to be up.

Constraints

  • Evidence handling has to preserve chain of custody, remote or not.
  • PCI-DSS, NIST 800, GDPR and CCPA all applied.
  • A $1M technology budget, expected to get cheaper to run every year.

Stack

AWSAWS GovCloudPythonZabbixElasticSearchPCI-DSSNIST 800GDPR

how it is built

  1. 01

    Migrate

    Architected secure AWS infrastructure and migrated on-prem servers and databases. Established the AWS relationship, joined the GovCloud Public Sector Partner Program, secured R&D credits.

  2. 02

    Global file share

    Built a global, secure, distributed file share system that cut QA and dev test times 96%.

  3. 03

    FBI ingestion PoC

    Developed a working proof of concept for the FBI's forensics ingestion on a clustered AWS approach.

  4. 04

    macOS training platform

    An industry-first cloud training platform on virtual macOS hosts.

  5. 05

    Run it

    Raised uptime to 99.999%, managed the $1M budget with 10% operating savings a year, automated scanning and pen testing to reach PCI-DSS and NIST 800 compliance.

calls I made

Why it looks like this.

01

The team is part of the platform

Founded the formal IT team and wrote the SOPs and security policies alongside the migration. Five-nines is a habit of a team, not a property of a data center.

02

Find where the wait actually is

A distributed file share cut QA and dev test times 96%. Sometimes the bottleneck is where the data lives, not the compute.

03

Use the cloud for what on-prem cannot do

Clustered ingestion and virtual macOS hosts were new capability, not lift-and-shift.

Want the longer version, with the parts that went wrong?

Ask me about it