The Challenge
Overcoming Legacy Constraints for Cloud Migration
Aflac faced several challenges in moving its sensitive data to the cloud:
- Performance Concerns: Initially, Protegrity assessed Aflac’s existing data security gateway (DSG) in order to accommodate Aflac’s move to the cloud. But the team discovered that the DSG’s traditional architecture didn’t offer the native elasticity found in the cloud.
- Scaling Limitations: The legacy infrastructure requirement for DSG made it difficult to scale up and down quickly and would have increased operational expenses, rendering it unacceptable for Aflac project leaders.
- Operational Delays: What’s more, with the Aflac business intelligence team moving analytics to the cloud created concerns about any potential delays, roadblocks, or technical shortfalls that could jeopardize the high-visibility project’s momentum
The Solution
Using Protegrity in Tandem with Snowflake on AWS
Aflac partnered with Protegrity to deploy a scalable, secure architecture tailored for cloud operations. Key solution elements included:
- Snowflake Architecture and Serverless Lambda Functions Within AWS: This solution combined the cloud-ready capabilities they needed to scale to the size required by a Fortune 500 company while allowing Aflac to take advantage of the established Protegrity Data Protection Platform.
- Snowflake Cloud Data Warehouse: Integrated seamlessly with Protegrity to extend on-prem data security policies to the cloud, ensuring continuity and regulatory compliance.
- Cloud Migration Efficiency: Improved operational efficiency and reduced costs by moving secure data processes to the cloud while retaining existing data security policies and procedures.
The Outcome
Enhanced Security and Cloud Scalability
Aflac’s transition to the cloud delivered measurable business and technical benefits:
Business Value
- Improved Usability: End users experienced seamless access to cloud-based tools, improving efficiency and unlocking new opportunities.
- Reduced Operational Costs: Migrating from on-prem systems to the cloud significantly lowered infrastructure expenses.
- Continuous Security Posture: Aflac maintained its on-prem security standards, ensuring continuity for business and InfoSec teams while freeing up more data to drive new cloud-based applications.
Technical Value
- Eliminated Legacy Costs: Aflac was able to retire expensive on-premises legacy data stores by deploying operationally efficient, cloud-based tools for elastic data protection.
- Dynamic Scalability: Leveraged AWS Lambda Serverless functions to adapt to unexpected data flows with ease and efficiency.
- Advanced Analytics Enablement: Enabled exploration of new cloud-based analytics, machine learning, and AI initiatives through the integration of Snowflake and Protegrity’s Data Security Platform.
Technology Implementation
The Protegrity Advantage: Driving Cloud Innovation
Before Protegrity Implementation
- Legacy DSG infrastructure lacked the flexibility and scalability for cloud operations.
- Operational delays and increased expenses hindered cloud migration progress.
- Analytics initiatives faced roadblocks due to performance and security concerns.
With Protegrity
- Elastic scaling with AWS Lambda functions enabled the technical teams to seamlessly respond to unexpected data flows.
- Snowflake integration extended secure data policies to the cloud, ensuring compliance and usability. on
- Retired costly on-prem systems while driving advanced analytics and cloud-based applications, creating millions of dollars in value.
Protegrity included us in in early design and architecture for seamlessly integrating tokenization with our Snowflake partners. We have been engaged hand in glove with early adoption and putting the focus on cloud native solutions.