Secured Cloud Services Case Study: Cisco ASAv + AWS

PTP has recently worked with three of our clients on initiatives to deploy the Cisco Adaptive Security Virtual Appliance (ASAv) into their Cloud environments to allow for the secure migration of on-premises workloads as well as encrypted VPN connectivity to their business partners, end users and connected devices. ASAv is the virtualized version of the Cisco ASA appliance that is deployed as a virtual machine in your cloud environment. A major benefit of using ASAv is that it runs the same software as the physical ASA that has years of proven success providing highly secure remote access and firewall services. Business are looking to leverage public cloud providers for on demand capacity and the agility to change as business requirements dictate. The case studies below are valuable examples of how organizations can leverage existing skill sets and proven technology to build scalable and highly secure environments in the cloud.

Case Study #1

A medical record SaaS provider with a growing presence in AWS made the decision to move the rest of their on-premises workloads to AWS. In addition to migrating applications for older server hardware it meant moving hundreds of VPN connections terminated on physical ASA appliances in their existing data center to their AWS environment. Due to the sensitivity of the information our client works with, highly secure VPN services were needed to meet their HIPAA compliance requirements. The ASA software has been protecting these types of environments for customers around the world for years, so our customer and their client were comfortable with using the ASAv solution.

Since the ASA and ASAv use the same code and provide the same VPN functionality, migrating the configuration to the cloud-deployed ASAv instances was quick and easy. The bulk of the work was spent working with the client’s business partners to reconfigure the far-end VPN devices to connect to the new ASAv in AWS. This migration was completed over the course of a few weeks with little downtime during maintenance windows.

The ability to quickly deploy Cisco ASAv into their AWS environment allowed them to provide a compliant, highly secure, VPN connectivity to their customers. This has enabled our client to decommission their aging physical server infrastructure and provide their customers with secure, high speed, connectivity to the applications they need to use. Their AWS environment as well as their VPN services can scale up or down as demand fluctuates or business requirements dictate.

Case Study #2

An up-and-coming connected fitness device company that has been experiencing exponential growth needed a way to move from their colocation facility to AWS. Due to the nature of the information collected by the client, highly secure VPN services were needed to meet HIPAA and PII compliance requirements. To accomplish this, it required migrating hundreds of VPN connections from their existing firewalls to their services running on AWS.

Our ability to quickly deploy Cisco ASAv into their AWS environment allowed them to provide compliant, highly secure, VPN connectivity to their customers, developers and connected devices. This has enabled our client to meet the demands of their growing user base as well as the ability to handle future growth as their business expands.

PTP is an AWS Advanced Partner as well as a Cisco Advanced Security Architecture Specialized Partner and a Cisco Cloud and Managed Services Partner (CMSP). PTP works with innovative companies to help them access, optimize, govern and secure their mission-critical cloud environments, so they can go about their business of bringing breakthrough products to market more rapidly.