Operational complexity can have a significant negative impact on a business’s ability to grow and keep up with the pace of modernization. One of the major contributors to complexity is often the network and security tools and practices that are commonly used today. Businesses can have a significant impact on this complexity by simplifying their network architecture, and automating their processes and practices.
CBT Nuggets, a long time Amazon Web Services (AWS) user, helps enterprises adopt new technologies, migrate to the cloud, modernize their infrastructure, and simplify their operations by offering high-quality, on-demand online training videos for IT professionals. These training videos cover topics such as networking, virtualization, cloud computing and more. They pride themselves on their ability to continually improve the learning experience for IT professionals.
With the rise of cloud adoption, CBT Nuggets has experienced substantial growth since they were first established in 1999, growing from only a handful to roughly 75 software developers dispersed across the globe. Their microservices architecture and continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) process allows them to quickly introduce impactful training materials.
The rise in the number of developers and the desire to allow them to work effectively and in harmony led to a considerable increase in complexity. This transformation created a need to simplify their networking deployments at AWS, and they required a solution that would allow for environmental separation and increased automation. Creating AWS Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) allows CBT Nuggets to provide clear separation between many environments, such as dev, QA, stage, production and others. However, this complicated the communication and flow of data and information between their premises and their VPCs as well as between VPCs. CBT Nuggets quickly realized that they needed to modernize their cloud architecture to keep up with continued growth.
In order for CBT Nuggets to support the increased amount of software developers across the globe, while keeping their data clean between environments, they required a solution that was simple yet effective. To help them overcome this challenge, they used Juniper Networks’ Transit VPC solution, leveraging the virtual SRX (vSRX) next generation security and routing platform for AWS. This allowed them to securely deploy and efficiently connect multiple, geographically disperse VPC environments.
CBT Nuggets’ adoption of CI/CD introduced a very efficient and automated way of running multiple environments, such as staging, integration, quality assurance, production, development and more. But this methodology alone did not address the complexity involved in provisioning the required network connectivity and security policy. But by taking advantage of the automation tools included in the Juniper Networks Transit VPC solution, CBT Nuggets’ is able to leverage AWS CloudFormation templates to automatically model and provision the needed AWS resources as well as deploy the vSRX. The AWS CloudFormation template made the entire process quick, simple and repeatable. The automated process also reduced the risk of outages caused by human error, and creates a much more agility in the entire environment.
With CBT Nuggets’ consistent growth and the introduction of new and innovative offerings, their developers required the freedom to experiment without being inhibited by the network. And with the Juniper Networks Transit VPC solution, their global team of developers can obtain the resources they need in a matter of minutes. CBT Nuggets can now fully leverage the AWS infrastructure and gain the agility they need to support their development efforts, and keep pace with their continued growth.
To learn more about how CBT Nugget securely connects and secures VPCs in minutes with Juniper Networks solutions on AWS, join myself along with, Nick Matthews, Solutions Architect at AWS, and Kurt Engle, Network Engineer/DevOps Architect, CBT Nuggets as we host a live webinar as a part of the APN Partner Webinar Series.
-Scott Sneddon, Senior Director and Chief Evangelist for Cloud at Juniper Networks
