The Challenge 

As one of the top independent paging carriers in the United States, the company provides critical communication services to over 45,000 customers, many in the healthcare sector where each message could be critical to a patient’s healthcare outcome. The aging on-premises infrastructure was beginning to create unnecessary risks: 

On-premises hardware in both the primary and secondary data centers posed single points of failure that threatened service reliability. 

Limited disaster recovery capabilities left the business at risk of extended downtime. 

Networking requirements supporting application administrators, customer agents, and third-party access created security challenges. 

HIPAA and SOC compliance requirements added a layer of complication. The carrier's customers depend on reliable paging infrastructure for time-sensitive healthcare communications, and extended outages could have serious consequences. The company needed to modernize their infrastructure without disrupting service to their customer base while maintaining or improving cost.

The Solution 

UTurn conducted a full cloud readiness assessment. Using AWS’s Migration Acceleration Program (MAP), UTurn completed the “Assess” and “Mobilize and Migrate” phases to migrate the on-premises application into AWS. 

The AWS architecture was designed as a multi-region architecture. UTurn deployed a robust infrastructure across two regions to achieve disaster recovery readiness. The application servers were rehosted on Amazon EC2 instances. The database was refactored from an on-premises SQL Server database to Amazon RDS for SQL Server. Moving the database from self-managed infrastructure to a fully managed cloud service eliminates operational overhead and introduces automated backup capabilities. 

Disaster recovery is implemented through AWS Backup with cross-region snapshot replication, improving RPO and RTO capabilities compared to on-premises while balancing data protection with cost-efficiency. Secure networking is achieved through a Twingate VPN solution in private and public subnets, providing secure access for application administrators and customer agents while maintaining public-facing customer access. Services were selected for HIPAA eligibility andSOC compliance. 

Post-project support will continue through UTurn’s Architect-in-Residence (AiR) and Managed FinOps programs.

Measurable Results

• Eliminated hardware failure risk by moving to managed AWS services. 
• Eliminated operational overhead by reducing physical hardware to maintain. 
• Converted Capex to Opex and controlled overall costs through cloud cost optimization.
• Improved disaster recovery capabilities with reduced RPO and RTO targets. 
• Established HIPAA and SOC eligible infrastructure with compliance-ready architecture. 
• Completed the entire project, from assessment through migration, in under six weeks. 

Tech Stack

AWS Services: Amazon EC2, Amazon RDS for SQL Server, Amazon VPC, AWS Backup, AWS Systems Manager, AWS Secrets Manager 
Infrastructure: Multi-region architecture (primary/secondary disaster recovery) Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) cross-region snapshot replication  
Security & Networking: Twingate (third-party VPN solution) public/private subnet architecture encryption at-rest and in-transit  
Application Layer: Windows Server, Ubuntu, Amtelco (third-party paging application) 

Why UTurn 

The company chose UTurn for their proven track record with AWS migrations and their ability to execute on an aggressive timeline. As an AWS Premier Tier Services Partner, UTurn brought deep technical expertise as well as access to funding programs that helped offset the cost of the project. Ongoing engagement through AiR and Managed FinOps ensures seamless continuity and ongoing support.

Ready to modernize critical infrastructure without downtime? UTurn migrates mission-critical workloads to AWS with built-in resiliency and compliance. Email info@uturndata.com to see how we can help.