Customer Overview
AAABED
Ahmad A. Abed Holding, a diversified enterprise group, was running critical business applications—including SAP, Microsoft SQL Server, and Active Directory—on legacy on-premises infrastructure. The customer faced rising costs, scalability challenges, and operational inefficiencies that limited innovation and growth. To modernize their IT landscape, they partnered with SUDO Consultants, to migrate their Microsoft Windows workloads to Amazon Web Services (AWS) in a secure, scalable, and cost-optimized manner.
Deliver the right solutions on the leading cloud platform
Cloud Consultancy
Unmatched due to SUDO’s wide knowledge and experience with the top three public cloud providers: AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, we provide cloud solutions that work uniquely in line with your business model. With our experienced professionals based in Dubai, UAE you’ll be able to gain deep insights into critical trends and opportunities in cloud technologies, access real-time data analytics, and modernize your entire infrastructure.
Challenges
Legacy Infrastructure:
Running Windows workloads and SAP
systems on aging servers created performance bottlenecks.
High Licensing Costs:
SQL Server and Windows licensing needed optimization to reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Scalability & Availability Limitations:
On-premises setup lacked
high availability and elasticity for future growth.
Active Directory Constraints:
Existing AD environment was
complex to manage, lacked redundancy, and slowed user authentication and application integration.
Operational Inefficiencies:
Manual patching, backups, and
monitoring slowed IT operations and exposed security gaps.
Compliance & Governance:
Needed improved visibility, centralized
control, and adherence to best practices.
Solution Delivered by SUDO Consultants
SUDO Consultants designed and implemented a secure, scalable, and license-optimized AWS architecture for Ahmad A. Abed Holding.
Architecture Design & MigrationSystems:
- Built a multi-AZ Amazon VPC with public/private subnets, NAT gateways, and security groups to host workloads.
- Migrated Microsoft SQL Server, Active Directory domain controllers, and SAP systems to Amazon EC2 Windows instances with right-sized compute to optimize licensing costs.
- Used Amazon RDS for SQL Server where possible to offload management overhead and ensure high availability.
Security & Compliance:
- Enforced IAM least privilege policies and role-based access controls.
- Integrated AWS Security Hub and Amazon GuardDuty for threat detection and compliance monitoring.
- Integrated Active Directory authentication with workloads, ensuring centralized identity and access management across AWS and
enterprise applications. - Enabled AWS CloudTrail and Amazon CloudWatch Logs for centralized logging and auditing.
Operations & Observability:
- Leveraged Amazon CloudWatch dashboards and alarms for real-time workload monitoring.
- Automated patching, inventory, and operations using AWS Systems Manager.
- Established detailed runbooks for operational excellence and incident response.
Backup & Disaster Recovery:
- Implemented automated Amazon EBS snapshots and Amazon RDS backups.
- Configured multi-AZ failover for mission-critical SQL Server workloads.
- Adopted AWS Backup for centralized policy-driven backup compliance.
Patch & Vulnerability Management:
- Designed a structured patching strategy using AWS Systems Manager Patch Manager for Windows workloads.
- Automated vulnerability scanning and remediation workflows.
Well-Architected Review (WAFR):
- Conducted a Well-Architected Framework Review of the deployed solution.
- Successfully achieved zero high-risk issues (HRIs) across Security, Operational Excellence, and Reliability pillars.
Business Outcomes
- Cost Optimization: Reduced licensing and infrastructure costs through right-sizing and license-aware EC2 selection.
- High Availability: Multi-AZ architecture and managed services ensured uptime and resilience.
- Stronger Security Posture: Continuous monitoring, IAM best practices, and centralized AD authentication enhanced governance.
- Operational Efficiency: Automated patching, monitoring, and backups reduced IT overhead.
- Future-Ready Infrastructure: Cloud-native design supports scalability, innovation, and long-term digital transformation goals.
Why SUDO Consultants
As an AWS Advanced Partner with expertise in Windows workload migration, SUDO Consultants combined deep knowledge of Microsoft technologies with AWS best practices. Our approach ensured a seamless, secure, and future-proof transition for Ahmad A. Abed Holding, positioning them for long-term scalability and innovation on AWS.
Key Benefits & Results
- 35% Cost Savings achieved through license reusability on EC2 Dedicated Hosts and right-sized infrastructure..
- 99.99% Availability for mission-critical workloads with multi-AZ redundancy and automated failover.
- Centralized Identity Management with resilient AD deployment across AWS, improving authentication performance and reducing user management complexity.
- Enhanced Security & Compliance with proactive monitoring, centralized logging, and AWS-native security services.
- 50% Reduction in IT Operations Effort by automating patch management, backups, and monitoring with AWS Systems Manager and CloudWatch.
- Faster Innovation Cycles as IT teams can now focus on business growth initiatives instead of infrastructure management.
