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Month: June 2025

About HSA

Hydraulic Seals Australia (HSA) leads the hydraulic seals market in providing custom-engineered and OEM hydraulic components. With manufacturing and warehouses located in Melbourne West, Melbourne East, Sydney, Newcastle and Brisbane, HSA provides quality products along with highly trained professionals, each employee working directly with the customer from procurement to delivery and inventory management.

Drivers to the Cloud

HSA has been with WOLK for some time and as such has matured it’s use of AWS services along the way. Originally HSA was running an end of life on-premise server solution which was extremely noisy and caused a disturbance to the workplace to the point where people no longer wanted to sit in the office. After experiencing numerous problems with this ageing solution due to ageing hardware and software, HSA decided to look for an alternative solution to overcome the challenges.

Before moving to WOLK, HSA decided to abandon their physical servers and move to a private hosting solution, belonging to a third-party private vendor. But with the provider failing to address the company needs and not being able to deliver the demand, HSA was facing new problems. There were multiple issues relating to the underlying hardware and configuration used by the vendor – oversubscription, slows and extended periods of outages ranging in days rather than hours or minutes were very common.

“We were exhausted by the constant issues we had to deal with relating to the third-party who hosted the servers for the company” said Kelly Barrett, HSA. “WOLK technology brought us hope and faith that we could overcome these issues by moving to AWS” she further stated.

Why Amazon Web Services (AWS)

With the disappointing experience of on-site and private cloud server offerings, HSA was looking for a reliable, agile solution that could cater for their growing requirements without the huge capital outlay.

Being the world’s biggest and most reliable public cloud provider, moving to AWS gave HSA a lot of certainty that their data would be safe. There would not be capacity or speed issues and all branches would have the same experience when using shared company resources.

HSA had big growth plans and needed a solution that could scale with them, while being able to stay within budget.

The Benefits of Working with AWS and WOLK Technology – an AWS Advanced consulting partner

HSA had been through a rough time with regards to their IT environment and needed a robust, performant solution that would not break the bank and could grow with them. WOLK understood the customer needs, especially the desire to be able to launch new branches with minimal fuss so WOLK implemented an EUC (End User Compute) environment for HSA to meet their needs. Because of external factors, there was a very small time window during which WOLK managed to successfully migrate HSA from their old private cloud hosting facility to AWS.

Previously, HSA had regularly experienced slows when someone at the branch level uploaded files or synchronized their Documents or Photos from their local machine to the server. There were also a couple of incidents relating to lost files, file corruption and or virus related damage that goes hand in hand with the threat of losing a device with confidential company data on it. Moving all compute resources to the cloud and keeping the data secure meant that the endpoint devices no longer had an influence on the user experience. We removed the need for endpoint devices to contain any data and we removed the need for a VPN between branches – this has significantly improved the customer’s security posture. Backups are automated, data is encrypted, users are kept away from data and the payroll system and data is no longer on shared resources.

WOLK provide our customers with a simple per user cost for usage and support, providing the customer with an easy to calculate growth path. HSA recently opened a new branch in Melbourne which was made very simple thanks to their scalable AWS environment. The IT / communication part of this go-live took mere minutes. WOLK pre-ordered an NBN connection, supplied the needed equipment for the new branch and configured the Firewall to use a 4g connection until the NBN went live, allowing the branch to start trading as soon as they were granted occupancy of the building.

During periods where access to the office is restricted, staff have the option of working from home with the same efficiency as working from the office, even if using BYOD home grade equipment. The ease of switching from office based to remote working is one of the key advantages to having a cloud native end user compute solution.

So what did WOLK do for HSA?

Due to time constraints and the technology stack already in place, WOLK migrated HSA to AWS using a lift-and-shift method from the private cloud hosting facility. This was partly done to reduce pushback from users by completely changing the technology they used as the users were reluctant to change. There was no time to retrain staff at that point as they had only just learned how to use the previous systems. We implemented a classic Microsoft Terminal Server environment and migrated all users across all branches over to the new infrastructure – going offline on a Friday afternoon and being live on the new systems on the Monday at 9am. This also included an Office 365 migration at the same time.

HSA used this system for several years, slowly adding more and more services to the mix as they grew and matured within the AWS portfolio. A need arose to keep the payroll system completely isolated from the rest of the shared systems due to incompatibility with software versions, so we implemented Workspaces for that purpose and the rest of the users continued to use the Terminal Services environment and it worked really well.

The time came to think about modernizing again, based partly on the age of the operating systems used in various parts of the infrastructure and changes in Microsoft licensing. It was clear that the best option at this point was to move all users to Workspaces and remove the ageing Terminal servers.

As prescribed by the Well Architected Framework, we conducted a Well Architected Review with HSA’s new GM and modernized all components of their environment. This means that every component is now once again under Microsoft support, is modern and the account as a whole has had a refreshed look at security and compliance. This is something we look at as part of our managed services ongoing, but taking the time and reassessing with the client (especially if there is new management) by conducting a Well Architected Review is key.

Technologies used within this environment include but are not limited to:

– Organizations
– Cloudformation
– EC2
– Config
– GuardDuty
– KMS
– Secrets Manager
– Systems Manager
– Workspaces
– FSx
– Lambda
– Route 53
– Cloudfront
– S3
– SES
– SNS
– Cloudtrail
– Cloudwatch
– Backup

In the SMB segment it is also prudent to understand that sometimes there are valid business reasons why clients use certain technologies and not others. For example, using a SQL server hosted on EC2 is perfectly fine if the customer is using a line of business system that needs features that are simply not available when using an RDS solution.

In 2022, 72% of all Australian organisations planned to expand into new markets. As they grow, many need to open new offices or locations to support their operations. 

One of the most common expansion challenges is keeping data secure, well-organised, synchronised, and legally compliant between every location. Data management solutions that worked for single-location businesses may be unsuitable for multiple offices. 

Migrating to a modern, secure workspace like Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers your organisation the tools to expand successfully. Find out how the AWS team at WOLK can help you get through the migration process.

Why Migration to a Secure, Modern Workplace Matters

Most businesses begin with a single location and a local IT infrastructure, featuring on-site servers and software. Expanding to new locations without changing this approach introduces challenges and risks: unnecessarily duplicated data, inconsistent security, and growing maintenance costs.

Migrating to AWS provides organisations with a single, well-architected work environment that multiple locations can access without the costs and challenges of managing local hardware. It moves business data storage, virtual desktops, file servers, and work applications to a centrally managed cloud service that can be accessed from any compatible device.

The AWS Migration Process, Step by Step

Successfully migrating to AWS requires careful planning and consideration for your business objectives. WOLK’s AWS experts will guide you through the process to keep your data safe, compliant, and easily accessible between your offices:

  • Infrastructure auditing. We map out how your business uses servers, employee profiles, and applications to understand your needs and workflows better.
  • Moving desktops to the cloud. Our team uses AWS WorkSpaces to move your company’s user profiles, settings, and applications to virtual desktops. Staff members can log in using their existing credentials from anywhere in the new office and see the same desktop and files they had before expanding.
  • Creating a secure environment for your data. With AWS DataSync, we move shared folders, documents, and other unstructured data from your on-premises servers to AWS storage services like S3 or FSx. Once in the cloud, Amazon’s data encryption at rest and in transit keeps it safe from outside threats.

Transition to the Cloud for your Multi-Location Business With WOLK

WOLK has helped Australian businesses and organisations move into the cloud since 2017. Contact our team today to discuss your needs, whether you’re expanding to a new office or need an AWS specialist to help keep your data secure and readily accessible.

Australian businesses in the healthcare industry must comply with multiple privacy and patient data protection laws. They include regulations like the Privacy Act 1988, the My Health Records Act, and state-level laws like South Australia’s Health Care Act 2008.

While protecting patient data is an ongoing responsibility, healthcare organisations also need the right data sharing and collaboration tools to provide quality care. Learn how the AWS team at WOLK can help you transition to cloud-based patient data management on Amazon Web Services (AWS), keeping your caregiving business agile, efficient, and legally compliant. 

Why Patient Data Security and Collaboration Are a Challenge

Many hospitals, clinics, and other caregiving facilities in Australia rely on outdated technology, putting patient information at risk. A 2024 study conducted by SOTI revealed that 53% of healthcare organisations in the country use outdated and legacy IT systems.

Examples include aging devices, on-site servers, and outdated software, exposing facilities to cyberattacks and data loss.

IT devices within these facilities are also frequently isolated or part of disjointed networks. They create collaboration and teamwork issues, such as accidentally duplicated data, mishandled records, and frequent double-handling.

How the AWS Secure Modern Workplace Solves These Issues

Migrating to a modern cloud-based workplace like Amazon Web Services (AWS) equips healthcare organisations to protect patient data while keeping it accessible to caregiving staff.

  • Teamwork with data security. With AWS WorkSpaces and AWS Client VPN, all caregivers can access records and hospital data securely from any location. The built-in user permissions system, multi-factor authentication, and central monitoring allow staff members to log in easily while keeping their accounts secure.
  • Improved collaboration. Collaboration on an AWS workspace is possible thanks to Amazon WorkDocs and Chime. These tools allow doctors, nurses, and other authorised staff to share sensitive files and records, work on the same documents simultaneously, and hold video conferences through secure channels.
  • Automatic backups. AWS services like AWS Elastic Disaster Recovery (AWS DRS) and AWS Backup help prevent data loss and facilitate restoring operations after a breach or another disaster event. Amazon S3 also supports versioning, making it possible to restore and protect multiple versions of the same patient records.

Work With an AWS Expert Today

The AWS specialists at WOLK are ready to assist Australia’s hospitals and caregiving facilities. Let us help you make your organisation more secure and efficient. Contact us to discuss your data security and compliance requirements.