“Softjourn’s ongoing support is an important part of our success. We value their partnership in helping us address the complex software and technology needed to operate a world-class business.”
Future-Proofing UPC’s Open Banking Platform: A Strategic AWS Migration
Discover how we helped UPC modernize their Open Banking Platform through a seamless cloud migration.
ABOUT THE CLIENT:
Challenge
UPC needed to migrate its on-premise infrastructure to AWS to comply with new regulations, maintain PCI DSS compliance, and modernize its systems.
Solution
Softjourn executed a phased AWS migration using serverless architecture, ensuring security, compliance, and minimal disruption.
Results
The migration enhanced UPC's performance, scalability, security, and reduced costs, positioning them for future growth.
Introduction
For nearly 15 years, Softjourn has been a trusted partner of the Ukrainian Processing Center (UPC), a key player in Ukraine's financial sector, while also supporting banks across 15 other European countries. UPC manages critical financial operations, including card transactions and ATM services, making it vital to Ukraine's economic stability.
Over our long partnership, we've collaborated on various projects, from maintaining UPC’s core processing systems to developing cutting-edge solutions like e-commerce platforms, encryption services, and Buy Now Pay Later.
Andriy Berezyuk, Business Development Director at UPC, has praised the ongoing partnership, stating, “Since 2009, the Softjourn team has been maintaining the processing system, which is the core of our business; they’ve done a great job!”
Sergiy Vetrenko, Chief Operating Officer at UPC
The Challenge
Historically, UPC hosted its products and codebase on-premise due to security concerns. However, due to new legislation in Ukraine aimed at improving banking services, particularly through Open Banking and APIs, UPC decided to migrate its systems to the cloud, starting with its Open Banking and E-Commerce platforms.
As UPC looked to modernize and comply with new legislative requirements in Ukraine, they faced the complex task of migrating their existing on-premise infrastructure to AWS.
This transition was critical for UPC to maintain its competitive edge and ensure compliance with PCI DSS standards, which is essential for the secure handling of payment card data. Failure to maintain PCI DSS compliance during migration can lead to significant financial penalties and potential breaches, jeopardizing a financial institution’s reputation and customer trust.
The architectural complexity of the migration, coupled with the need to maintain PCI DSS compliance, presented significant challenges. Ensuring compliance on production servers required meticulous attention to detail, particularly as we needed to use only native, serverless AWS services to meet stringent audit requirements.
Additionally, the project involved synchronizing decisions with multiple stakeholders and partners, further complicating the process and requiring careful coordination to align all parties with the technical and compliance demands of the migration.
Despite these challenges, and given UPC's limited resources at the time, Softjourn worked diligently within the budget constraints to ensure progress was made without compromising on quality. Our ability to effectively manage and allocate resources allowed us to meet UPC's expectations, maintaining the high standards of service they required.
The Solution
To tackle the complexity and ensure PCI DSS compliance, we proposed a phased migration strategy that utilized AWS's serverless architecture, ensuring both security and scalability end-users and cardholders.
This approach allowed us to isolate environments within a single AWS account, providing the necessary security framework while simplifying the management process.
The migration was planned in phases to minimize disruption and ensure a smooth transition:
- Infrastructure as Code: The entire infrastructure was code-driven and managed through Terraform, enabling efficient and consistent deployment across all environments.
- Environment Isolation: All environments (development, testing, pre-production, and production) were isolated within a single AWS account, ensuring security and compliance.
- IAM Roles and Policies: We implemented IAM roles and policies to manage interservice connections securely, further enhancing the security framework.
- Centralized Management: A centralized approach to infrastructure management was established, operating from a single AWS account, simplifying oversight and maintenance.
Throughout the project, Softjourn’s DevOps engineers played a pivotal role, earning high praise from the client for their commitment and expertise.
Benefits
The migration to AWS provided UPC with several key benefits:
- Improved Performance and Scalability: The new AWS-based infrastructure offers enhanced performance, scalability, and reliability, crucial for supporting UPC's growing customer base and expanding services.
- Enhanced Security and Compliance: By leveraging AWS's serverless resources, the infrastructure is better aligned with PCI DSS requirements, ensuring secure transactions and data protection.
- Cost Efficiency: The use of serverless technologies and centralized management reduced the operational costs associated with maintaining physical servers.
- Seamless Transition: Despite the project's complexity, the phased approach and Softjourn’s expertise ensured a smooth transition with minimal disruption to UPC's operations.
The migration to AWS not only solved the immediate challenge of maintaining PCI DSS compliance but also positioned UPC to better serve its growing customer base with improved performance and scalability.
By reducing operational costs through serverless technologies, we ensured that UPC could reinvest those savings into further innovation, strengthening their competitive edge in the market.
Conclusion
Softjourn's successful migration of UPC’s infrastructure to AWS marked a significant milestone in their long-term partnership. UPC has expressed satisfaction with the ongoing work, particularly appreciating the smooth migration process and the performance of the systems on AWS.
Sergiy Vetrenko, Chief Operating Officer at UPC, emphasized the value of this collaboration, stating, “Softjourn’s ongoing support is an important part of our success. We value their partnership in helping us address the complex software and technology needed to operate a world-class business.”
As the migration project nears completion, UPC and Softjourn are already planning the next steps. There is ongoing collaboration to address challenges related to synchronization with multiple stakeholders to ensure that the migrated systems meet PCI compliance and other regulatory requirements.
This successful migration is just the beginning. As UPC continues to modernize its infrastructure, our partnership will evolve to meet new challenges and opportunities, ensuring that UPC remains at the forefront of financial technology.
Partnership & Recognition
