Their infrastructure, hosted on DigitalOcean, was no longer sufficient to meet their scalability and performance needs. Managing all the unique environment variables across multiple application instances posed significant challenges, leading to inefficiencies and operational risks. To address this, we developed and executed a migration plan to transition their infrastructure to AWS.

As Excrow’s user base and transaction volumes grew, they encountered several challenges:

We worked closely with Excrow’s engineering team to design a modern AWS architecture capable of supporting increasing transaction volumes while simplifying operations and strengthening data protection.

Database Modernization

Excrow’s PostgreSQL database was migrated to Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL using AWS Database Migration Service (AWS DMS). Amazon RDS utilizes encrypted Amazon EBS gp3 volumes to deliver high-performance transactional storage with Multi-AZ deployment, automated snapshots, and AWS Backup for centralized backup management.

Shared Application Storage

To support multiple application instances running on AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) was introduced as shared persistent storage. Financial reports, reconciliation files, exported statements, document-processing artifacts, and temporary application data are securely shared across all application servers, eliminating dependencies on local instance storage.

Durable Object Storage

Completed reports, customer documents, exported files, and application assets are stored in Amazon S3. Versioning, Lifecycle policies, and Cross-Region Replication improve durability while automatically transitioning inactive content to Amazon S3 Glacier storage classes for long-term archival and regulatory retention.

Dynamic Configuration Management

Over fifty application environment variables were centralized using AWS Systems Manager Parameter Store. Custom startup scripts retrieve configuration values securely during application initialization, eliminating manual configuration management.

Infrastructure Automation

Terraform automates the provisioning of Amazon RDS, Elastic Beanstalk environments, networking, security controls, backup policies, and monitoring services, providing consistent deployments across all environments.

Monitoring & Operational Visibility

Amazon CloudWatch and AWS CloudTrail provide centralized monitoring, auditing, and operational visibility across compute, storage, networking, and security services, enabling proactive issue detection and faster incident response.

The new infrastructure introduced several key AWS components:

Improved Scalability

The AWS architecture allowed Excrow to handle growing transaction volumes seamlessly, ensuring uninterrupted service during peak times.

Simplified Management

Dynamic configuration of environment variables reduced manual intervention, streamlining operations and minimizing errors.

Enhanced Reliability and Fault Tolerance

Features like auto-scaling and Multi-AZ deployments ensured Excrow’s applications could handle high traffic while maintaining uptime.

Reduced Operational Overhead

By migrating to Amazon RDS and automating infrastructure management, the team’s workload was significantly reduced, allowing them to focus on innovation.

With its modern AWS platform in place, Excrow is well positioned to support future growth while maintaining high levels of availability, security, and operational efficiency.

The layered storage architecture built on Amazon EBS, Amazon EFS, Amazon S3, and Amazon S3 Glacier provides the flexibility to support growing transaction volumes, shared application workloads, long-term document retention, and disaster recovery requirements without increasing operational complexity.

By combining managed AWS storage services with Infrastructure as Code, automated backup policies, and continuous operational monitoring, Excrow now has a scalable foundation capable of supporting future financial services innovation while optimizing long-term storage costs.

Excrow’s migration to AWS was a turning point in their journey, enabling them to scale their operations, improve reliability, and simplify complex management tasks. By leveraging AWS-managed services and automation, we empowered Excrow’s engineering team to focus on delivering exceptional value to their banking and financial institution partners.

If you’re facing similar challenges, let’s discuss how AWS can help modernize your infrastructure and drive growth. Together, we can build a platform designed for your success.