Platform Engineering

Making cloud work the way it should for every customer.

Untangling AWS & AWS GovCloud | Optimizing for Security,
Cost, and Performance

Providing Insights Into AWS

Visibility is key to ensuring that your AWS/AWS GovCloud environments work the way you need them to. You need to be secure, you want to minimize costs, and you need to ensure that your customers, internal and external, are happy with application performance.

Gaining that visibility, and understanding what you are looking at once you do have that view, can be very tricky in AWS. The power of AWS is in its flexibility, and in the minute ways you can tweak thousands of parameters to meet your needs precisely. However, that strength can also be a weakness when AWS is not structured properly.

You can end up with opaque bills that feel like cost overruns, with warnings and findings about security risks that make no sense, and with applications that bog down for no apparent reason.

The SMS Platform Engineering group is a team of top secret cleared engineers who are AWS and AWS GovCloud experts, along with deep expertise in Infrastructure as Code, Security & Compliance, and Infrastructure & Application Planning. Our team of engineers work with you to learn what you need your AWS environment to do, and then deep dive into the environment to see what is set up. We will create an actionable list of issues, security risks, and insights based on industry best practices. Our close out meeting dives into these solutions and provides an opportunity for an in-depth Q&A with our expert engineers.

How can we help you?

An Expert Hand When You Need It

Your business needs to grow, and the pressure for high performance from your AWS environment is intense. Applications need to be written and tested, ideas quickly trialed, production environments need to achieve almost 100% uptime. This ensures that your business continues with its current growth, and can look to the future.

At this rate of development, it is hard to stay on top of all the changes available in AWS. Which are helpful? Which will simply bog down development, or the application, in unnecessary cycles? And when do you make decisions about refactoring - will containers really provide the answer to your current application issues?

You need to wade through all of these questions, and be an expert on a thousand different things, while still doing your day job. This is near impossible, and typically results in scattered focus, incomplete projects, and incorrect decisions.

The SMS Platform Engineering group follows three main themes when working with clients: expertise, partnership, and ethics. The group has years of combined experience in AWS, and can answer all kinds of questions you have. This is their main focus. When the Platform Engineering group works with a client, the goal is a long-term partnership, one in which the group can be called on when needed, and will provide the expertise required. Which leads to the third theme, that of ethics. All the work which the Platform Engineering group proposes are driven by one need only: to be the right way for our client in their current situation. There is no driver to sell more, or to lead clients one way or another. Instead, the Platform Engineering group is successful when a client has a well-operating AWS/AWS GovCloud environment that they are comfortable digging into with the team, that serves their needs the best way possible.

How can we help you?

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Getting Started with Platform Engineering

There are a number of products which SMS’ Platform Engineering team provide, which can help you get started on your journey towards a highly resilient, highly performant AWS environment. If this list does not feel as though it covers what you need, we can always work with you directly to design a program to meet your specific needs, and to get you to your ultimate goal.

Platform Accelerator

The Platform Accelerator provides an easy and quick way to get an initial glimpse into what is going on in your AWS/AWS GovCloud environment.

The Platform Engineering team is granted access to the AWS environment you need evaluated. The team will dive deep, learning about what exists in the environment, and developing insights and recommendations. At a close-out meeting, this information is presented, and you have an opportunity for an in-depth Q&A with our expert engineers.

Platform Plus

The Platform Plus product covers the time and effort needed for meeting a specific business goal or infrastructure milestone.

The Platform Engineering team works with you and your team to understand your business requirements, and from there, your technical needs, working with what you have in place along with what your end state goal is. The Platform Engineering team works with your team, developing and building as needed, while ensuring that your team are trained and understand the work that is being done.

Well Architected Review & Remediation

AWS provides guidelines for reviewing an AWS infrastructure to ensure it follows the Well Architected Framework, along with a number of closely related business processes. 

These review guidelines are called the Well Architected Review (WAR). Performing a Well Architected Review requires a resource who is well versed in AWS infrastructure, and understands the asks of the WAR questions. In addition, interpreting the results of the Well Architected Review, and understanding what work is required based on those results, is a task that needs AWS expertise.

The Platform Engineering team sets up with you and performs a Well-Architected Review, going through all the pillars to ensure you are following AWS best practice. Following the Well-Architect Review, the Platform Engineering team works with you to remediate findings from the Review, ensuring you the best AWS outcome.

AWS Security Accelerator

Customers often require, or have required of them, adherence to different compliance standards. 

By achieving compliance to the CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark, you can demonstrate a secure environment. In addition, with the CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark compliance, you are well on your way to achieving other compliances as this compliance provides the greater part of a number of popular compliance targets, such as HIPAA, PCI, and FedRAMP.

The Platform Engineering team will evaluate where your AWS/AWS GovCloud infrastructure stands today, which might be completely greenfield, to sorting through an environment which needs to be brought up to speed. A Security Plan will be developed and then executed. The AWS environment in question will be locked down, and adherence to compliance will be demonstrated via AWS Security Hub.

Cloud Migration Accelerator

Migrations are tricky beasts, and never more so then when migrating to AWS, or even within AWS. 

The Cloud Migration Accelerator provides the migration assistance needed to ensure you meet both your business and technical targets. The Platform Engineering team begins the migration process with a review, learning about the current environment. A Migration Plan is developed. When everything is in place, the migration itself begins, with both the customer and the Platform Engineering team working through the different steps. Once successfully completed, the Platform Engineering team ensures that the customer team has the information they need about maintaining their new environment.

AWS Foundation and Enablement

Setting up your AWS environment covers a lot of moving parts, and different areas of expertise. 

Receiving expert assistance on these different pieces can mean the difference between an AWS environment that limps along, and one that performs efficiently and effectively.

There are 4 main foundational areas that are pre-defined by the Platform Engineering team. Assistance with other foundational areas is also available.

  • Landing Zone Setup
  • Infrastructure Pipelines Setup
  • Network Topology Setup
  • Running Applications - Platform Setup

The Platform Engineering team determines what outcomes you need from the category selected, ensuring that both your business and technical requirements are met. A Project Plan is created and reviewed, and the Platform Engineering team gets to work. Whether you choose for the Platform Engineering team to do everything, or whether yourstaff will be working alongside them, the Platform Engineering team will ensure that your staff are ready to own and maintain the new foundational piece of AWS.

Let's discuss your case.

+1 571 499 5590

8484 Westpark Drive
Suite 620
McLean, VA 22102-3590

Interested in Working With Us?

SMS is known not only for our reputation of technical excellence but also for our passionate and knowledgeable staff. We are continuously looking for talented, motivated individuals who want to become part of a dynamic team with an established track record of supporting the federal government.