EC2 to ECS with Fargate and RDS modernisation

The Challenge

Client’s legacy infrastructure was running on Amazon EC2 instances hosting both application and database workloads. As the platform scaled, this setup led to growing challenges:

Manual management of compute and database resources.
Increasing operational overhead and inconsistent deployment practices.
Limited fault tolerance and elasticity under peak usage.
The need for stronger security and compliance alignment due to handling sensitive healthcare data.
Rising infrastructure costs with minimal visibility into utilization trends.

The client’s goal was clear - modernize their compute and database layers, reduce management burden, improve resilience, and align with compliance frameworks.

The Solution

We partnered with the client to design and implement a modern, serverless, and secure AWS architecture, focusing on performance, compliance, and cost efficiency.

Key Modernization Components

Compute Modernization

Migrated application workloads from Amazon EC2 to Amazon ECS on AWS Fargate, removing the need to manage servers and scaling infrastructure automatically.
Implemented CI/CD pipelines for zero-downtime deployments and consistent rollout processes.

Data Layer Transformation

Migrated MySQL workloads to Amazon RDS for MySQL, leveraging automated backups, Multi-AZ replication, and monitoring with Amazon CloudWatch.
Enforced encryption at rest (AWS KMS) and in transit (SSL/TLS) to meet healthcare-grade data security standards.
Applied strict network isolation using VPC Security Groups and Network ACLs.

Security and Compliance

Adopted AWS security best practices, including IAM least privilege policies, VPC segmentation, and centralized logging through AWS CloudTrail and AWS Config.
Ensured alignment with UK Cyber Essentials Plus and GDPR requirements for data protection and access control.

Cost Optimization & FinOps

Conducted detailed TCO analysis to identify savings through right-sizing, Reserved Instances, and automated scaling.
Introduced a shift-left FinOps approach, enabling development teams to track and optimize cost during the build phase.

Developer Experience & Operational Excellence

Redesigned the development workflow for improved CI/CD efficiency, faster release cycles, and reduced human error.

Well-Architected Design for Reliability

Designed for high availability and durability with Multi-AZ deployments and automated recovery mechanisms.
Established RTO and RPO across critical workloads.

Architecture Overview

The new architecture leverages fully managed AWS services to achieve scalability, automation, and security compliance:

Amazon ECS on AWS Fargate for containerized workloads.
Amazon RDS for MySQL as the managed data layer.
Amazon VPC for network isolation.
Terraform for Infrastructure-as-Code.
AWS CloudWatch, AWS Config, and AWS CloudTrail for monitoring and auditability.
AWS KMS for centralized key management and encryption.

EC2 to ECS with Fargate and RDS modernisation

Technologies used

The Challenge

The Solution

Key Modernization Components

Architecture Overview

Conclusions