University College Birmingham (UCB) is a leading UK higher‑education institution known for its vocational, professional, and industry‑aligned academic programmes. Supporting thousands of students across multiple campuses, UCB relies on a substantial on‑premises VMware environment and a broad portfolio of academic and administrative applications.
As part of their digital transformation strategy, UCB engaged Bytes to modernise their cloud security posture, establish a governed AWS Landing Zone, and prepare the institution for a phased migration of priority workloads. The objective was to replace fragmented identity models, inconsistent operational processes, and limited threat visibility with a unified, secure, and scalable cloud foundation fit for the needs of modern education.
 

UCB’s legacy environment had grown complex over time, with disparate identity silos, distributed security controls, and manual operational processes spanning multiple academic and administrative systems. These challenges created material risk across several AWS Security Competency categories.

Identity & Access Management

• Multiple identity stores and manually granted permissions across different platforms.
• Lack of centralised authentication and inconsistent least‑privilege enforcement.
• Limited auditability for access to sensitive data such as student records and financial systems.

Threat Detection & Response

• Security monitoring relied heavily on isolated logs and manual review.
• No AWS‑native capability to detect anomalous activity, account compromise, or configuration drift.
• Increased risk to both academic and administrative workloads.

Infrastructure Protection

• Legacy workloads lacked consistent hardening and segmentation.
• No enforceable secure‑baseline pattern for cloud‑hosted workloads.
• Trust boundaries varied by department, creating inconsistent operational risk.

Data Protection

• Sensitive PII and financial information stored across multiple systems without consistent encryption policies.
• Certificate governance and key management lacked structure and central oversight.
• Data‑handling practices varied between teams and academic units.

Compliance & Privacy

• Distributed logging and inconsistent control enforcement complicated governance.
• Difficulty demonstrating GDPR alignment, especially around identity, audit, and configuration traceability.
• Limited ability to support modern digital services with robust, compliant cloud foundations.

Operational Readiness & Legacy Constraints

• Existing MAP and OLA artefacts from a prior partner were incomplete and outdated.
• Dependency clarity across AD, networking, and EUC systems was insufficient.
• Operational processes (patching, incident response, backup governance) required uplift before migration could proceed safely.

Bytes delivered a secure‑by‑design AWS foundation using AWS Organizations, Control Tower, and a fully modernised security operating model tailored for higher education. This provided UCB with unified identity governance, hardened cloud baselines, full visibility of security posture, and automated backup/data‑protection patterns.

1. Multi‑Account Landing Zone & IaC Implementation

• Established a governed multi‑account AWS Landing Zone using AWS Organizations and Control Tower.
• Dedicated accounts created for Production, Non‑Production, Shared Services, and Security.
• All baselines - VPCs, DNS, logging, guardrails, IAM frameworks—deployed using Terraform, ensuring repeatability, consistency, and auditability.

2. Centralised IAM & Modern Access Governance

• Implemented AWS IAM Identity Center / SSO with MFA and least‑privilege permission sets.
• Legacy fragmented identity models replaced with a unified governance pattern across all departments.
• Introduced Just‑In‑Time elevation for privileged access with automatic expiry.

3. Continuous Security Monitoring & Compliance Enforcement

• Delivered organisation‑wide deployment of CloudTrail, AWS Config, GuardDuty, Security Hub.
• Automated configuration‑drift detection and remediation workflows.
• Cloud security posture management introduced to ensure consistent baseline adherence.
• All new workloads automatically inherited logging, encryption, and guardrail controls.

4. Infrastructure Protection & Network Segmentation

• Built secure VPC baselines with segmented routing and centralised DNS.
• All workloads deployed into private subnets with hardened access pathways.
• Standardised patterns ensured academic and administrative applications inherited consistent security boundaries.

5. Data Protection, Backup & Resilience

• Enforced encryption at rest and in transit across all accounts and services.
• Implemented automated, policy‑driven backup strategies using AWS Backup.
• Performed scheduled test restores to validate RPO/RTO compliance for critical applications.
• Introduced structured data‑handling patterns aligned to GDPR expectations.

6. Enhanced Discovery, Validation & Operational Readiness

To address challenges discovered early in the project:

• Conducted a second, full OLA to replace outdated outputs from the previous partner.
• Improved dependency mapping across AD, network, and EUC systems.
• Strengthened operational readiness checks for runbooks, patching processes, and IR procedures.
• Embedded these improvements into Bytes’ standard delivery methodology for future phases.

The implementation of UCB’s new secure AWS foundation resulted in measurable improvements across identity governance, security posture, operational reliability, and compliance alignment.

1. 78% Reduction in IAM‑Related Risks

• IAM non‑compliant configurations reduced by 78% following SSO rollout and guardrail enforcement.
• All AWS accounts now operate under a consistent, audited permission‑set model.
• 100% of account creation performed through Account Factory with pre‑approved controls.

2. 61% Reduction in Configuration Drift

• CloudTrail, Config, and GuardDuty coverage increased from 0% → 100% across all AWS accounts.
• Configuration‑drift incidents decreased by 61%, improving operational stability.
• Security Hub provided unified compliance reporting across academic and administrative workloads.

3. Strengthened GDPR & Privacy Compliance

• Full audit trail established for changes, access, and configuration updates.
• Encrypted storage, consistent IAM, and unified monitoring significantly reduced privacy risk.
• Improved readiness for internal audits and external regulatory scrutiny.

4. Reduced Operational Overhead by

• Terraform automation removed manual build processes, reducing rework and human error.
• Standardised VPC, IAM, logging, and backup patterns simplified onboarding of new applications.
• Centralised visibility improved the efficiency of UCB’s IT and security teams.

5. Improved Resilience & Faster Recovery

• Automated, scheduled backup + restore validation increased service continuity confidence.
• Key academic systems now meet defined RTO/RPO objectives.
• Hardened backup vaults reduced risk of accidental deletion or ransomware impact.

6. Scalable, Secure Foundation for Future Migrations

• As UCB continues migrating VMware‑based workloads using MGN, DMS, and DataSync, all systems automatically inherit encryption, logging, and policy guardrails.
• Landing Zone now serves as a reliable platform for cloud‑native development and modernisation projects.