Tgix put together an architectural blueprint and migrated multiple properties, including the core merriam-webster.com site to a secure, flexible, scalable, and easily managed AWS infrastructure. A significant amount of refactoring and automation was implemented in the process to allow Merriam-Webster all the benefits of the cloud environment. With a public-facing, SEO-driven website, speed was another key factor that had to be balanced with cost-efficiency.

AWS Transit Gateway was configured to connect the accounts, along with a VPN for remote access. The integrated environment allowed the team to easily configure operational tasks such as backups and monitoring. A Single Sign-On (SSO) implementation with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) allowed the team to provision and control user accounts through a single management interface, so there was no need to maintain multiple logins or passwords.

Additionally, the secure architecture created by Tgix proved immensely beneficial to the developers at Merriam-Webster as well, who were new to AWS. The isolated environments gave them time to learn about the Cloud and to explore all the new functionality and tools without having to worry about changing key features that were being used in real time. Concurrently, new CICD tools were integrated to bridge the development and production environments to enable automatic deployment of code changes.

The Tgix team stayed on to work with Merriam-Webster on cloud engineering updates, application containerization with Docker/Kubernetes, and ongoing cloud management, which included backups, DR, cost optimization, and on-demand support.