reference
AWS for ITSM

AWS Architecture for ITSM Infrastructure

Multi-Account Structure (AWS Organizations)

Best practice for enterprise ITSM deployments uses a multi-account model via AWS Organizations and Control Tower:

Management Account (billing + governance)
├── Security OU
│   ├── Log Archive Account    (CloudTrail, Config, S3 logs)
│   └── Security Tooling       (GuardDuty, Security Hub)
├── Infrastructure OU
│   ├── Network Account        (Transit Gateway, Direct Connect)
│   └── Shared Services        (DNS, AD, monitoring)
└── Workloads OU
    ├── Production Account     (ITSM platform, live services)
    ├── Staging Account        (pre-prod validation)
    └── Dev Account            (development and testing)

ITSM platforms (ServiceNow instances, Jira data centers) run in the Production Account. This isolates their blast radius and simplifies compliance auditing.

Terraform Module Structure

# Root module — production ITSM infrastructure
# /terraform/environments/prod/main.tf
 
module "networking" {
  source = "../../modules/networking"
 
  vpc_cidr            = "10.0.0.0/16"
  availability_zones  = ["eu-west-3a", "eu-west-3b", "eu-west-3c"]
  enable_nat_gateway  = true
  enable_vpn_gateway  = true
}
 
module "itsm_compute" {
  source = "../../modules/itsm-compute"
 
  instance_type    = "m6i.2xlarge"
  ami_id           = data.aws_ami.rhel9.id
  subnet_ids       = module.networking.private_subnet_ids
  min_size         = 2
  max_size         = 6
  target_group_arn = module.alb.target_group_arn
}
 
module "rds" {
  source = "../../modules/rds-postgres"
 
  engine_version    = "15.4"
  instance_class    = "db.r6g.xlarge"
  multi_az          = true
  storage_encrypted = true
  backup_retention  = 35  # days
}
 
module "bcp_dr" {
  source = "../../modules/dr"
 
  primary_region  = "eu-west-3"
  dr_region       = "eu-west-1"
  rpo_hours       = 1
  rto_hours       = 4
}

BCP/DR Architecture

RTO/RPO Tiers

TierService ExamplesRTORPOStrategy
Tier 1ITSM Platform (Prod)4h1hActive-Passive, cross-region
Tier 2Internal tools8h4hWarm standby, same region
Tier 3Dev/staging24h24hCold backup restore

Cross-Region DR Pattern

EU-WEST-3 (Paris) — PRIMARY          EU-WEST-1 (Ireland) — DR
┌─────────────────────┐               ┌────────────────────┐
│  ALB                │               │  ALB (standby)     │
│  EC2 Auto Scaling   │               │  EC2 (stopped)     │
│  RDS Primary ──────────────────────→│  RDS Read Replica  │
│  S3 (assets)  ─────────────────────→│  S3 (replication)  │
│  Route53 Primary    │               │  Route53 Secondary │
└─────────────────────┘               └────────────────────┘
        │                                      │
        └──────── Route53 Health Check ─────────┘
                  Failover: < 60s DNS TTL

Hybrid Connectivity (Direct Connect + VPN)

On-Premises DC

    ├── AWS Direct Connect (1Gbps) ──→ Network Account → Transit Gateway
    │   Primary: dedicated, predictable latency

    └── Site-to-Site VPN (backup) ───→ Network Account → Transit Gateway
        Failover: automatic via BGP

                              ┌───────────────┼───────────────┐
                              ↓               ↓               ↓
                        Production       Staging          Shared
                        Account          Account          Services

Key Terraform Providers & Modules

terraform {
  required_providers {
    aws = {
      source  = "hashicorp/aws"
      version = "~> 5.0"
    }
  }
 
  backend "s3" {
    bucket         = "dk-terraform-state-prod"
    key            = "itsm/prod/terraform.tfstate"
    region         = "eu-west-3"
    dynamodb_table = "terraform-lock"
    encrypt        = true
  }
}
 
# Remote state references for cross-module dependencies
data "terraform_remote_state" "networking" {
  backend = "s3"
  config = {
    bucket = "dk-terraform-state-prod"
    key    = "networking/prod/terraform.tfstate"
    region = "eu-west-3"
  }
}

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