Unlocking the full potential of your AWS environment: the case for third-party management in public sector organisations
The UK public sector increasingly uses cloud technology to deliver services efficiently and securely. AWS is popular for government departments, educational organisations, and non-profit organisations because it offers scalability, security, and innovation. However, managing an AWS environment at an organisational level can be challenging.
Managing costs while ensuring security and complying with the necessary regulations all add to the growing number of challenges for IT teams, to ensure security, and comply with regulations. Jisc’s managed AWS service allows organisations to procure and use AWS technologies and services, managed and supported by our expertise and experience – helping to improve your cloud security posture and manage your cloud spend.
In this piece, I will explain the benefits of using third-party expertise to manage your AWS environment and why this approach is beneficial for public sector organisations.
The growing complexity of AWS environment
AWS environments allow businesses to manage their AWS accounts centrally. They enable public sector entities to create multi-account environments, apply policies, and monitor costs and usage across the organisation. While this is a powerful feature, it can also lead to significant management challenges.
In a typical AWS environment, IT teams must juggle:
- Account management: Setting up and maintaining multiple accounts to ensure workload isolation and security.
- Cost control: Managing budgets, setting up billing alerts and billing Tags and optimising resource usage to stay within tight budgets.
- Security and compliance: Ensuring data and workloads comply with stringent regulations, such as CIS, PCI, NIST or HIPAA.
- Governance: Establishing and enforcing policies across accounts while maintaining operational agility.
- Optimisation and innovation: Continuously improving performance and adopting new AWS services to meet evolving mission needs.
These responsibilities require specialised skills and tools many public sector organisations may not have. Mis-configurations, inefficiencies, or compliance violations can lead to financial losses, security breaches, and damage to reputation.
The case for third-party AWS management
Using our managed AWS service and partnering with a third-party provider to manage your AWS environment can effectively tackle these challenges. Here are the main benefits:
1. Better cost optimisation and accountability
Public sector organisations have strict budgets and are accountable for taxpayer funds. Third-party providers have expertise in managing AWS costs. They typically use FinOps tools to:
- Find and fix unused or underutilized resources and adjust instances as needed.
- Implement tagging and cost allocation: Ensure clear visibility on resource usage for accurate billing.
- Forecast costs: Offer insights to help plan budgets and avoid unexpected expenses.
Using these strategies, public sector organisations can make the most of their AWS investment while staying within budget.
- Improved security and compliance
The public sector deals with sensitive data, and AWS offers robust security features. However, configuring and managing these features across an organization requires expertise. Third-party providers can:
- Automate security – set up protections against misconfigurations and vulnerabilities through landing zones and best practices.
- Monitor continuously – identify and address threats proactively using AI-powered tools.
- Provide compliance support – ensure your AWS environment meets specific regulations.
This approach enhances security and builds trust in your organisation’s integrity.
- Streamlined operations and governance
Managing governance in an AWS organization can be complicated. Third-party providers can help with:
- Policy automation – enforce consistent rules for resource usage and security across all accounts.
- Efficient account setup – simplify the process of creating new accounts with templates and guardrails.
- Centralised insights – use dashboards and reports to track performance and compliance.
These features allow staff to focus on essential tasks rather than getting bogged down in administrative work.
- Scalability and agility
AWS is known for its ability to scale resources quickly. However, effective scaling requires expertise. Third-party providers can help by:
- Optimising architecture – design applications and services that scale well and cost-effectively.
- Supporting innovation – rapidly test and implement new solutions using DevOps practices and AWS services.
- Adapting to change – respond quickly to new needs or challenges in the public sector.
By partnering with a third-party provider, public sector organisations can manage their AWS environments effectively, optimise costs, enhance security, streamline operations, and achieve greater flexibility.
5. Access to specialised expertise
Third-party providers have a lot of knowledge from managing different AWS environments in the public sector. They keep up with changes in AWS, so public sector customers can use the latest features. The benefits include:
- Best practices – providers have experience implementing proven security, cost management, and governance strategies.
- Tailored solutions – they create customised services to meet the unique needs of public sector organisations, such as moving old systems or combining different environments.
- Training and support -help up skill internal teams and provide 24/7 support to resolve issues promptly.
Should you choose Jisc, getting help is simple with managed AWS. Your IT support team needs just one point of contact. It’s us!
Addressing common concerns
Some organisations may worry about control, security, or cost when using third-party providers. However, these worries can usually be addressed by:
- Clear SLAs (Service Level Agreements) – ensure accountability and define specific service expectations.
- Data sovereignty and control – third-party providers implement solutions that comply with Data Protection Act and GDPR, giving organisations full control over their data.
- Cost vs value – while there is an upfront cost, the long-term savings from optimised operations, reduced risks, and better service delivery often outweigh the expense.
Real life example
Samaritans provides 24-hour support, so digital transformation was a priority for them to improve business efficiencies and keep pace with the changing behaviours of its service users. Find out how Jisc helped Samaritans with their cloud migration.
A strategic path forward
Managing an AWS organisation for the UK public sector, is not just about technology; it’s about providing cost-effective, secure, and scalable solutions. Partnering with a third-party provider can help organisations make the most of AWS so they can focus on serving the public.
Using specialised expertise, automated tools, and best practices, public sector organisations can confidently manage cloud services and create more value for customers and stakeholders. Now is the time to consider this partnership and make the most of third-party AWS management – contact your relationship manager or our cloud team cloud@jisc.ac.uk.
Jisc’s partnership with AWS
As an AWS Consulting Partner and AWS Government Reseller with extensive expertise in the AWS platform we can support you through procurement, design, and delivery of AWS with a support wrapper and ongoing full life-cycle management.
Visit our AWS partner page for more information.
Richard Bailey, managed services manager, Jisc.