Rackspace Technology Engineer Creates Innovative Automated AWS IoT WAR Framework

When a Rackspace Technology® customer needed an AWS Well-Architected (WAR) assessment of its IoT processes, including physical asset security risks and recommendations, the team had to conduct the assessment manually because there was no automated process available.

Due to the time- and cost-consuming process, the Professional Services team in the Asia-Pacific-Japan region tasked Pradhmanyu Yadav, AWS Certified Solution Architect, with creating an automated AWS Well-Architected (WAR) tool for IoT.

AWS WAR Tool is a cloud-based service that provides a consistent automated process for measuring a cloud architecture using AWS best practices. It generates reports based on AWS’s five WAR pillar standards, identifies gaps in performance, and makes recommendations to remediate them.

The AWS IoT Lens for the AWS WAR enables customers to review and improve their cloud-based IoT architectures and better understand the business impact of their design decisions.

Pradhmanyu completed the innovation in 50 hours, developing an IoT WAR lens that includes questions, risks, and recommendations converted to JSON code. In addition, AWS was consulted, and feedback was shared on establishing a common repository so all partners could share and use the work.

The tool was used to complete the AWS IoT Lens assessment for the customer, providing them with the results and recommendations they needed to ensure optimal IoT internet security in a much shorter amount of time.

Professional Services Award Nomination

The innovation tool was so impactful that the Manager of Professional Services in APJ, Deepak Kumar, nominated it for a Proserve Technical Innovation Award. “I chose to nominate Pradhmanyu because of his proactive approach and ability to take complete ownership of a project, even if it meant the task has to be worked on outside of regular business hours.”

The new IoT WAR Tool can now be used across Rackspace Technology with any AWS account through the AWS console for a wide variety of use cases. Reports can be generated that include proper formatting, risk assessments, and recommendations without delays or complexity. This offers our customers a unique service that is not available with any other AWS partner.

According to Kumar, “Thanks to this innovation by Pradhmanyu, we were able to help our existing customer with its Well-Architected IoT WAR reviews — and also provide a solution that can be reused within Rackspace Technology. So now, we can conduct reviews for all our AWS customers with greater speed and at a lower cost.”