AWS & Application Services — Ongoing Maintenance and Support

GoSource delivered ongoing maintenance, monitoring, security hardening and helpdesk support for eight DAFF systems to keep them compliant, available and cost-efficient.

Challenge

DAFF required ongoing maintenance, operational management and user support for eight critical systems. These systems needed to remain secure, highly available, policy-compliant and continuously aligned with evolving business, government and cybersecurity requirements. Without proactive maintenance, the risk of security incidents, policy non-compliance and degraded service quality would grow over time, potentially forcing costly system rewrites.

Solution

GoSource delivers a comprehensive support and maintenance service under the AWS & Application Services agreement covering eight DAFF systems. The service spans a support helpdesk, system monitoring, patching, software enhancement and infrastructure management.

• Proactive monitoring and improvement: Both automated and manual monitoring are used to detect issues before they affect users. Improvements are triggered by monitoring alerts, user feedback or the availability of new features and tools.
• Cybersecurity hardening: A Web Application Firewall (WAF) was deployed across all web-facing systems, significantly strengthening the security posture.
• Compliance and standards enforcement: Code libraries, tools and dependencies are regularly updated to maintain compliance with Departmental policies and industry standards. Automated tooling validates code against language-specific best practices.
• Resource optimisation: AWS resources are continuously analysed to ensure right-sizing and cost efficiency. Load balancing distributes incoming traffic to prevent overload and guarantee availability.
• Support desk: A helpdesk operates within negotiated business hours. Tickets are triaged by severity — critical outages receive immediate attention, while lower-severity issues are prioritised alongside existing work.

Outcomes

• 99.74% uptime across all covered systems in 2023, exceeding business targets
• 141,879 threats detected and neutralised by the WAF platform in March 2024 alone, with zero data breaches or security-related downtime
• Near-immediate user support within business hours, generating positive feedback on responsiveness and care
• Full policy and standards compliance maintained across all systems through ongoing updates
• Cost-effective resource management through AWS monitoring and load balancing — no excessive spend and no user-reported slowdowns during peak periods
• Systems remain fit-for-purpose through regular enhancement projects, capable of fulfilling all critical business processes without external dependencies

Technologies & Methods

• AWS Cloud (EC2, load balancing, resource monitoring)
• Web Application Firewall (WAF)
• Automated code compliance scanning
• Helpdesk ticketing and triage
• Proactive patching and version upgrading
• Unit and system testing
• Fortnightly / monthly stakeholder reporting

Team Size

Not specified (ongoing managed service)