Problem Statement
The customer wanted to automate the provisioning of VMs from tickets created in Jira. Once a VM is provisioned, it is assigned a shutdown date. Before that date, a cloud engineer contacts the server’s owner to confirm whether to keep the same shutdown date or extend it.
Based on the owner’s response, the server is then shut down.
This entire lifecycle had to be automated with no manual intervention.
Proposed Solution & Architecture
Tekrosta Cloud designed and implemented a fully automated VM provisioning and lifecycle management system using AWS-native services integrated with Jira.
Key components of the solution included:
- Jira Service Desk Integration: A custom form captures VM provisioning requests.
- AWS Service Catalog Connector: Provisions VMs directly from Jira tickets.
- AWS CloudFormation & Service Catalog: Automatically create EC2 instances based on the request parameters.
- Amazon DynamoDB: A centralized store for VM details (owner, shutdown date, and status).
- Web Portal: Gives owners and administrators visibility into VM lifecycle details.
- AWS Lambda Functions: Send automated Amazon SES email reminders to VM owners before shutdown, and run daily checks to stop VMs on their defined shutdown dates.
- Security & Governance: IAM roles, policies, and VPC best practices ensured a secure and scalable architecture.
Project Outcomes & Success Metrics
- Seamless Automation: VMs were provisioned directly from Jira without manual steps.
- Lifecycle Management: Automated reminders and shutdowns ensured cost savings.
- Operational Efficiency: Manual workload for engineers was reduced by 80%.
- Enhanced User Experience: End users experienced faster VM provisioning and could easily extend VM usage.
- Governance: All VM lifecycle details were stored in DynamoDB, with full visibility through the portal.
- Reliability: Daily Lambda jobs ensured that unused VMs were shut down on schedule.
Lessons Learned
- Integration Fine-Tuning: The Jira–AWS Service Catalog connector required configuration adjustments to ensure smooth provisioning.
- Lifecycle Governance: Storing VM lifecycle data in DynamoDB ensured traceability and became a foundation for further automation.
- User Adoption: End users preferred the self-service Jira portal, which led to faster adoption and reduced dependency on cloud engineers.