Background

Authorium, founded as City Innovate in 2014, is dedicated to making government operations more efficient through advanced technology solutions. The company aims to streamline complex document-centric processes within government agencies to facilitate data-driven decision-making and improve operational efficiency. Their core offerings include procurement, budgeting, contracts, HR, and grant management solutions, leveraging advanced document process automation to unlock the value hidden within documents and data​.

Authorium primarily focuses on simplifying and enhancing the efficiency of state and local government operations, with plans to expand into federal government processes. Their platform addresses the challenges faced by government agencies in managing procurement, contracts, budgets, policies, and grant processes by automating workflows, ensuring compliance, and enabling real-time collaboration.

Authorium Challenges

Authorium approached DuploCloud because sourcing sufficient DevOps and SecOps talent was incredibly challenging for a startup. Cost constraints kept their DevOps team to a minimum, stretching staff thin and requiring them to wear many hats. To overcome this, the Authorium team realized they needed strong support from a partner with multi-faceted expertise in Amazon Web Services (AWS) technology, security compliance, and solutions engineering.

Authorium needed to establish a presence within GovCloud and meet stringent security compliance standards for working with government agencies, including SOC 2, StateRAMP Moderate, and AZRAMP (Arizona Risk and Authorization Management Program). Authorium lacked StateRAMP-Moderate compliance, which was needed to expand its two-state market to bring its product nationwide. This was difficult because StateRAMP Moderate requires extensive security controls, documentation, and ongoing management, which demands specialized DevOps expertise and resources.

In addition, Authorium needed to effectively maintain its cloud infrastructure and security compliance while keeping hiring levels sustainable, allowing the team to focus on company growth and success. 

DuploCloud Solutions

DuploCloud initially worked with Authorium to provide guidance and support as the company established a presence in GovCloud. This process was driven by DuploCloud experts and streamlined by DuploCloud’s DevOps Automation software and Terraform provider, which enabled Authorium’s team to create and configure environments in hours rather than weeks.

Docker Containerization and Environment Setup

DuploCloud assisted with the docker containerization of Authorium's applications, building separate production and non-production environments. This ensured a consistent and scalable deployment process across different stages of development and production.

Security and Compliance

The DuploCloud SIEM dashboard (a Wazuh-based security solution included in the DuploCloud offering) and out-of-box secure provisioning of the cloud infrastructure led to Authorium quickly meeting the compliance standards (SOC 2, StateRAMP, and AZRAMP) required to work with state governmental agencies. DuploCloud implemented AWS security tools and deployed the Wazuh SIEM, keeping the infrastructure servers up to date with security baselines through regular scans and vulnerability patches, security penetration testing and reporting, as needed, further ensuring compliance and security integrity.

Infrastructure-as-Code and CI/CD Pipelines

Working closely with Authorium, DuploCloud built and maintained Terraform modules to create Infrastructure-as-Code for the migrated infrastructure. Additionally, they established and maintained CI/CD pipelines to automate, and build/test deployment procedures for the new environments and services, ensuring streamlined, error-free operations.

Logging, Monitoring, and Alerting

DuploCloud enabled comprehensive logging, monitoring, and alerting solutions for all environments deployed in DuploCloud. This included maintaining the health of the infrastructure by completing log rotation and backup, providing Authorium with real-time insights, and ensuring continuous operational efficiency.

Ongoing Support and Best Practices

DuploCloud provides 24x7 support for any issues related to Auhtorium’s AWS environments. They also assist Authorium with best practices and architectural guidance for new services on an ongoing basis, incorporating necessary AWS configurations into Terraform and CI/CD pipelines. 

Partnering with DuploCloud ensured that Authorium could maintain secure and compliant cloud infrastructure, allowing them to focus on their core mission of company growth. With DuploCloud’s support, Authorium navigated complex compliance requirements, enhanced its operational capabilities, and drove its success in a competitive market.

Impact

DuploCloud’s software platform, AWS expertise, and robust support services have been instrumental in helping Authorium build and maintain its AWS infrastructure and meet government security compliance standards with limited resources. According to Authorium, “partnering with DuploCloud has allowed us to dedicate our energy to the growth of the company, or market share growth, rather than maintenance of the infrastructure.”

Enhanced Credibility and Market Expansion

DuploCloud’s assistance in achieving SOC 2, AZRAMP, and StateRAMP Moderate compliance enhanced Authorium's credibility with government agencies. StateRAMP Moderate, in particular, was a compliance milestone that expanded Authorium’s market from two states (Texas and Arizona) to all 50, opening up new opportunities and significantly broadening their potential customer base.

Operational Efficiency and Focus on Core Business

By handling the complexities of cloud infrastructure and compliance, DuploCloud allowed Authorium to focus on its core mission and strategic growth initiatives. This partnership alleviated the burden of infrastructure management, enabling Authorium to allocate more resources to innovation, customer engagement, and market expansion.

Scalability and Improved Security Posture

The scalable and secure infrastructure provided by AWS, managed and optimized by DuploCloud, equips Authorium with a robust foundation for future growth. Comprehensive security measures, including deploying Wazuh SIEM and AWS security tools, enhance their security posture and ensure their infrastructure remains secure and compliant with evolving standards.

Reduction in Operational Complexity and Supplemental Expertise

DuploCloud’s software platform simplified the management and deployment of application environments, reducing complexity and allowing developers to focus on application development rather than infrastructure management. The supplemental expertise provided by DuploCloud, from design and implementation to troubleshooting and cost optimization, ensured high operational standards without the need for a large in-house DevOps team, enabling Authorium to meet customer deliverables and regulatory requirements.

Technical Implementation

AWS was the best choice for Authorium because its scalable, secure, government-standard compliant infrastructure, advanced services, and global reach enhance Authorium’s document process automation solutions and support its growth. Additionally, AWS’s robust compliance certifications and cost-effective pricing model align well with the needs of a startup managing complex government requirements.

Key services include:

• Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS): Deploy, manage, and scale containerized Docker applications.
• AWS Certificate Manager (ACM): Provision, manage, and deploy SSL/TLS certificates with AWS services and internally connected resources.
• Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (VPC): Provision logically isolated sections of the AWS cloud to launch AWS resources in virtual networks.
• Amazon S3 Buckets: Store and retrieve data with high durability, availability, and scalability. Manage access permissions and data lifecycle policies.
• AWS Systems Manager (SSM): From a unified interface, automate and manage the configuration and operations of your AWS resources across your infrastructure, including patch management, system monitoring, and task automation.
• AWS Secrets Manager: Safely store, manage, and rotate sensitive information, such as database credentials and API keys, with automatic secret rotation and secure access controls.
• Amazon RDS (Relational Database Service): Set up, operate, and scale relational databases in the cloud with automated backups, patch management, and high availability.
• Amazon EFS (Elastic File System): This service provides scalable, high-performance file storage with AWS cloud services and on-premises resources, offering seamless integration, automatic scaling, and high availability.
• Amazon ElastiCache: Deploy, operate, and scale in-memory caching solutions with Redis or Memcached to improve application performance by reducing database load and accelerating data retrieval.
• AWS CloudFormation: Create and manage a collection of related AWS resources, provisioning and updating them in an orderly and predictable manner.
• AWS CloudTrail: Enable governance, compliance, and operational and risk auditing of your AWS account.
• AWS Config: Provide AWS resource inventory, configuration history, and configuration change notifications to enable security and governance.
• AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM): Control access to AWS services and resources securely.
• AWS Lambda: Run code without provisioning or managing servers and pay only for the compute time you consume.