Case Study: Strengthening Cloud Confidence for a Leading Executive Agency

Challenge

A leading UK executive agency had made significant progress in adopting AWS, including migrating from an earlier-generation platform to a new, more flexible multi-account AWS environment. The new platform was designed to improve stability, cost control, and autonomy for service teams running business-critical workloads.

Despite this progress, senior stakeholders sought independent assurance that the platform was being developed and operated in line with best practice. There was concern that, without clear guardrails and operating structures, the platform could gradually drift away from secure and compliant configurations as adoption accelerated.

Key challenges included unclear ownership across platform, security, and service teams; limited visibility into configuration drift and security posture; inconsistent application of preventative and detective controls; and an absence of a clearly defined cloud operating model and shared responsibility framework. While teams believed the platform was secure, there was limited evidence to demonstrate this confidence in a measurable, auditable way.

Solution

Cloudscaler was engaged to deliver a Cloud Confidence Check: a rapid, independent assessment designed to provide objective insight into the agency’s AWS platform maturity, security posture, and operating practices.

The engagement combined two complementary approaches. First, Cloudscaler conducted an automated security scan across a representative subset of production AWS accounts, performing over twelve thousand checks against security best practices. This provided a data-led view of configuration risks, control gaps, and areas of deviation from expected standards.

Second, Cloudscaler held structured interviews with senior stakeholders across platform engineering, security, governance, FinOps, and digital leadership. These discussions focused on how the platform was designed, how it was operated day to day, and where responsibilities were understood or ambiguous across teams.

Findings and recommendations were structured around Cloudscaler’s three pillars for successful cloud adoption: technology (the cloud platform), people and process (the cloud operating model), and governance, risk, and compliance (the cloud control framework). The output was a clear, prioritised set of recommendations covering security, platform maturity, operating model design, FinOps, backup and disaster recovery, and cloud strategy.

Benefits

The Cloud Confidence Check provided the agency with objective clarity. For the first time, leadership had a quantified view of security posture, including pass rates, risk severity, and where remediation should be prioritised.

The findings highlighted that while many modern cloud practices were already in place, such as infrastructure as code and containerisation, gaps in guardrails and ownership had allowed risk to accumulate unnoticed. This insight enabled the agency to move from assumption-based confidence to evidence-based decision-making.

The assessment also created alignment across teams. By clearly articulating where responsibilities were unclear, the agency could begin defining a shared responsibility model that reduced duplication, closed gaps, and supported faster, safer delivery.

Value

Cloudscaler’s value lay not just in identifying issues, but in framing them within a practical roadmap for improvement. Recommendations were prioritised and grouped into short-, medium-, and longer-term actions, allowing the agency to address critical risks quickly while planning for sustainable maturity.

The report went beyond security scanning to address organisational enablers, including the establishment of a Cloud Centre of Excellence, the development of a cloud operating model, and the creation of a cloud controls framework that links risk directly to technical and procedural controls.

This approach ensured the output was actionable, proportionate, and aligned with the realities of operating a complex public-sector cloud environment.

Lessons Learned

The engagement reinforced the importance of treating cloud platforms as evolving products rather than one-time implementations. Without continuous scanning, clear ownership, and embedded guardrails, even well-designed platforms can drift from best practice over time.

It also highlighted that cloud confidence cannot rely on belief alone. Sustainable assurance comes from combining automated evidence, clear operating models, and a culture where security, cost, and resilience are shared responsibilities.

For the executive agency, the Cloud Confidence Check established a strong foundation for confident, compliant cloud adoption. For Cloudscaler, it reaffirmed the value of independent, data-led reviews in helping organisations turn cloud progress into enduring trust.