The Company

A large, not-for-profit and nonpartisan association of Australasian road transport and traffic agencies, who represents all levels of government in Australia and New Zealand. They provide high-quality, practical, and impartial advice, information, tools, and services to help its members deliver efficient, reliable, and safe mobility. Funded by Australian and New Zealand government transport agencies.

The Challenge:

With fragmented data sources spread across newly acquired systems like TCA and existing on-premises environments, the customer needed to enhance their data management and analytical capabilities. To address this, they initiated a strategic project to adopt Azure Databricks as their unified data platform.

While the platform had been selected, the customer required a specialist Azure managed services provider to set up the underlying cloud infrastructure – securely and in line with best practices. This is where AC3 came in. We were tasked with architecting, building and configuring a scalable and secure Azure environment with a single tenancy. This included

  • Establishing compliant and secure Azure Landing Zones.
  • Implementing strong security and network controls.
  • Enabling system access for their Databricks project team to begin their implementation.
The Solution:

The customer engaged AC3 for specialist Azure managed services in infrastructure design and deployment. AC3 deployed and designed a secure, high-performance Azure environment on a dedicated tenancy, tailored to host the Azure Databricks platform.

Utilising the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework, AC3 crafted Azure Landing Zones that were configured to host the solution securely and effectively. AC3 provided the foundation architecture, focused on secure integration and quality data management with the following Azure services:

  • Secure Networking: AC3 established a secure and isolated Virtual Network (VNet) for Databricks in the Azure Landing Zone, leveraging network segmentation and routing best practices.
  • Access Control: AC3 configured Azure Firewalls, Network Security Groups (NSGs), and Application Security Groups (ASGs) to implement least-privilege access and grant only authorised traffic to the Databricks environment. AC3 employed Azure Role-Based Access Controls (RBAC) to effectively manage the users' permissions on the Azure resources.
  • Governance: AC3 employed Azure Policies for enforcing organisational standards, security controls, and cost controls throughout the environment.
  • Foundation: The solution employed Azure Landing Zones best practices to provide a scalable, secure, and well-governed cloud foundation, ready for the Databricks implementation team.

AC3 provided strategic planning, deep experience in secure Azure Landing Zone design, expert deployment of the Azure infrastructure, and established the necessary access controls.

The Results:

AC3 Azure managed services, provided the customers’ new data platform program with considerable enabling value:

  • Ready-to-Use Platform Foundation: AC3 provided a secure, scalable, and best-practice-configured Azure environment. This allowed their Databricks team to start implementing their platform immediately on a solid foundation.
  • Enabled Secure Data Integration: AC3's provisioned Azure platform offers the secure channels (e.g., on-premises system connectivity) and environment required to enable the integration of data from varied sources, assisting them in securely breaking down data silos.
  • Foundation for Enhanced Analytics: Through the provision of the secure and high-performance Azure foundation layer through its managed services, AC3's work enables the customers’ goal of performing comprehensive data analysis and gaining deeper insights when the Databricks platform is fully in place.
  • Facilitating Data-Driven Decision-Making: AC3-delivered Azure infrastructure is the essential foundation step, creating the secure and controlled environment necessary to help them further its vision of harnessing richer, integrated insights towards better decision-making.
  • Scalable and Secure Infrastructure: The customer now has a strong, secure data management platform with AC3's Azure managed services. It meets today's requirements, is built to grow with future demand, and positions them at the leading edge of Australasian transport data management and innovation, securely founded on Azure.