CDL Simplifies Deployments and Monitoring for Security-Conscious Customers on AWS

As a prominent software and services provider for the UK insurance industry, CDL’s success depends on its ability to drive new solutions to market using technology. “We aim to lead and influence the market rather than reacting to trends and events,” says Rob Trueman, Head of Software Engineering at CDL. "We invest significantly in research and development and run many proofs of concepts as we explore innovation through our InsurTechX initiative, focused on applying technologies such as machine learning to simplify insurance products and transactions for the millennial generation.”  

The company first launched its next-generation insurance solution Strata, a scalable sales and administration platform to empower business growth and continues to develop new solutions to provide insurance consumers with easy-to-use, self-service technology options. Today, CDL predominantly offers its technology to clients as software as a service (SaaS) and has been using Amazon Web Services (AWS) for four years. “We are heavy users of cloud-based services,” says Trueman. As CDL continued to develop its online platform and solutions, the company sought to identify a cloud-native monitoring solution that could provide both CDL and its customers with application performance, infrastructure monitoring, and real-time intelligence.  

Following a thorough vendor selection process, CDL chose to use Dynatrace, an AWS Partner Network (APN) Advanced Technology Partner, and connect to Dynatrace’s SaaS-based software intelligence platform for application monitoring and AWS-deployed infrastructure monitoring. “Dynatrace automates everything out of the box. This enabled us to get configured and up and running very quickly,” says Trueman. When CDL onboards a new customer, the company sets up entirely new accounts on AWS for each customer and provides an additional connection to Dynatrace on behalf of each customer.

CDL’s customers emphasize security above all else. Given its focus on providing a highly secure solution to customers, the CDL team needed a way to more securely send data to and from each customer’s virtual private cloud (VPC) running on AWS rather than going over the public Internet to reduce exposure to threat vectors including brute force and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. CDL also wanted the ability to connect to Dynatrace while avoiding the public Internet, given the nature of the data monitored by Dynatrace and its customers’ needs for compliance with payment card industry (PCI) compliance and other industry regulations.

To make this possible, the CDL team takes advantage of AWS PrivateLink.  

AWS PrivateLink simplifies the security of data shared with cloud-based applications by eliminating the exposure of data to the public Internet. AWS PrivateLink provides private connectivity between VPCs, AWS services, and on-premises applications securely on the Amazon network. Dynatrace supports AWS PrivateLink for its customers like CDL on AWS, which enables security-conscious customers to use its SaaS offering with confidence and efficiency.

“Normally, visibility and security are at opposite ends of the spectrum; however, by using AWS PrivateLink combined with Dynatrace, we enjoy the best of both worlds,” says Trueman.

For the CDL team, Dynatrace’s support for PrivateLink enables them to take full advantage of the Dynatrace solution and drive better experiences for clients.

“Our clients insist on a high degree of security with every deployment. Using AWS PrivateLink gives our clients confidence as they begin their projects,” says Trueman. “For us, it secures, simplifies, and speeds up each customer deployment.” By reducing the complexity of each deployment, CDL can invest more time and resources into evolving its product suite through its InsurTechX initiative.

“Dynatrace’s support for AWS PrivateLink allows us to focus on driving business value, improving experience and releasing features, which is paramount to the success of any product, rather than wasting time with cumbersome complexities when linking these services together,” says Trueman.

The CDL team is using AWS PrivateLink extensively to connect to many of its services. The company plans to continue expanding its use of PrivateLink and leverage Dynatrace across more of its services using PrivateLink.