How a Financial Services Leader Achieved Mission-Critical High Availability and Eliminated Unplanned Downtime Risk

Client Name: Financial Company

Industry: Financial Services

Region: US East (N. Virginia)

Duration: 1 Week

Engagement Scope

Enhancing security, scalability, and availability of storage workloads using Amazon FSx and Workspaces.

Business Challenge

GBI, a financial services provider, faced several challenges in managing critical workloads and sensitive financial data:

Data Security: Ensuring strict compliance with financial regulations for data access and retention.

High Availability: Guaranteeing uninterrupted access to critical datasets during peak operations.

Scalability: Supporting a growing number of analysts and increasing data volumes.

Operational Complexity: Simplifying infrastructure management without compromising reliability.

Objective

The primary objectives of this engagement were:

Provide secure, role-based access to sensitive financial datasets.

Enhance availability and resilience of Windows-based workloads.

Ensure compliance with financial regulations through encryption, auditing, and access controls.

Reduce operational overhead with managed AWS services.

Solution Provided by Futran Solutions

Futran Solutions architected and deployed a secure, high-availability solution leveraging Amazon FSx for Windows File Server and Amazon WorkSpaces, supported by AWS native monitoring and security services:

Amazon FSx for Windows File Server: High-performance, fully managed shared file storage with SMB integration, deduplication, compression, and automated backups.

Amazon WorkSpaces: Virtual desktops mapped to FSx volumes, giving analysts low-latency access to financial datasets.

AWS Directory Service: Seamless integration with Active Directory for role-based access control.

AWS CloudTrail & CloudWatch: End-to-end logging, monitoring, and auditing.

AWS WAF & IAM: Network-level and identity-level access policies for enhanced data security.
Managed Services – Monitoring & Optimization: Provided 24/7 monitoring of FSx workloads and WorkSpaces using AWS CloudWatch and CloudTrail, enabling proactive alerting, performance tuning, and automated remediation for operational efficiency.
Managed Services – Backup & Disaster Recovery: Delivered automated backup management and disaster recovery for FSx volumes, leveraging AWS Backup and multi–AZ deployment to ensure data durability and business continuity.

Key Workloads Involved

Financial Data Analysis Platforms (accessing large structured/unstructured datasets).

Windows-based Workloads run on FSx shared storage.

Analyst Workspaces for secure, remote access to sensitive data.

Architecture Overview

The solution was deployed in US East (N. Virginia) with multi-AZ availability for resilience.

VPC with Public & Private Subnets to isolate resources.

Amazon FSx deployed in private subnets across Availability Zones for HA.

Amazon Workspaces connected to FSx volumes via SMB for direct data access.

AWS Directory Service is integrated for role-based authentication.

CloudWatch, CloudTrail, and AWS WAF implemented for monitoring, logging, and security.

Results Achieved

40% faster productivity: Analysts accessed real-time financial data from WorkSpaces with minimal latency.

99.99% availability: Multi-AZ FSx deployment ensured continuous access during failover events.

30–38% cost optimization: Compression and deduplication in FSx reduced storage costs.

100% regulatory compliance: Encryption with KMS, IAM policies, and auditing cut audit exceptions by 90%.

50% higher efficiency: Automated backups and managed services lowered IT overhead, freeing staff for high-value tasks.

Lessons Learned / Best Practices

Early Security Integration: Applying IAM and AD policies upfront ensured compliance from the beginning.

Embrace Managed Services: FSx and WorkSpaces simplified operations while improving scalability.

Data Lifecycle Management: Regular backups and replication provided strong disaster recovery posture.

User Training: Enabling analysts with WorkSpaces and FSx usage minimized support requests.

Continuous Monitoring: CloudWatch insights optimized both performance and cost.

Take Your Business to New Heights

Elevate your business with Futran Solutions' digital transformation. Contact us today to learn more.