Weather Command: Achieving Enterprise-Grade Security andCloud Financial Management at Scale
Partner: Rego Consulting |
Customer: Weather Command |
Engagement Type: AWS Well-Architected Framework Review |
Date: Q4 2025
Document Version:WC-SEC-COP-3.0 |
Last Updated: November 18, 2025
Executive Summary
Weather Command, an independent software vendor (ISV) delivering meteorological analytics across agriculture, transportation,energy, and emergency management industries, partnered with Rego Consulting to address critical operational challenges in cloudsecurity operations and financial management. Operating multiple SaaS applications on AWS with a lean IT team, WeatherCommand needed enterprise-grade security automation, continuous compliance monitoring, and application-level cost visibility.
Through a comprehensive AI-accelerated Well-Architected Framework Review (WAFR) and strategic deployment of AWS-nativetools, Weather Command achieved transformational outcomes:
Security Transformation:
- Centralized security operations with automated threat detection and continuous compliance monitoring
- Significant reduction in compliance assessment time through automated controls
- Real-time threat detection, automated remediation capabilities, and comprehensive audit trails
Cloud Financial Management Excellence:
- Application-level cost allocation enabling product-line profitability analysis
- Cost reporting reduced from hours per month to minutes per day
- Weekly cost accountability reports fostering cost-conscious engineering practices
- Data-driven pricing decisions supporting executive reporting
Centralized Security Operations Architecture
The Organization:
Weather Command delivers high-precision meteorological analytics and forecasting services through multiple SaaS applications. Asan independent software vendor operating in a real-time data environment, their AWS-hosted applications demand strongcompliance, robust security controls, and cost-efficient operations that directly impact product profitability.
The company operates with a lean IT team managing a growing cloud footprint across multiple product lines. As Weather Commandexpanded its customer base—particularly clients requiring rigorous security and compliance standards—the organization recognizedthe need for systematic cloud governance addressing:
The Challenge:
Security Operations and Compliance Challenges
Weather Command’s security operations relied on manual processes that created operational risk and consumed valuableengineering time:
Limited Security Visibility:
- Lack of centralized aggregation or prioritization of security findings
- Limited unified view of security posture across AWS resources
- Difficult to track vulnerabilities consistently
- Security incidents required manual investigation
Manual Compliance Processes:
- Security and compliance assessments required significant time and manual effort
- Configuration drift detection performed reactively through periodic reviews
- Compliance reporting required significant manual work
- Limited automated enforcement of security baselines
Incident Response Constraints:
- Security findings lacked automated prioritization
- Incident response delayed by limited team availability
- Limited automated threat detection or anomaly identification
- Comprehensive audit trails difficult to maintain
“Operating with a small IT team, it was difficult to dedicate appropriate time and resources to maintain evolving security andcompliance standards,” said Scott Burgholzer, Weather Command. “This often led to manual, time-consuming assessments and alack of consistent review against AWS best practices.”
Cloud Financial Management Challenges
Weather Command’s core challenge was the inability to understand which applications and product lines drove cloud costs:
Cost Measurement and Accountability Gap:
- No ability to allocate costs to individual applications or product lines
- Engineering teams lacked cost visibility
- Inability to establish chargeback mechanisms
Planning and Forecasting Limitations:
- Monthly budgeting based on aggregate spend
- Forecasts inadequate for executive reporting
- Unable to model spend growth by product line
Cost Reporting and Visualization Inefficiency:
- Manual spreadsheet work requiring hours per month
- Limited visibility into cost drivers by application
- Cost trend analysis difficult without automated dashboards
Pricing and Profitability Uncertainty:
- Without application-level infrastructure costs, competitive pricing difficult
- Product managers unable to assess cloud margin
- Strategic pricing decisions made without cost data foundation
The Solution:
Weather Command partnered with Rego Consulting to implement comprehensive Cloud Operations transformation through an AI-accelerated WAFR combined with strategic deployment of AWS-native security and financial management services.
“Automation greatly reduced the hours previously required to complete WAFR assessments, consolidating tasks that once tookupwards of days into less than an hour,” said Scott Burgholzer. “This allowed the team to benefit from a guided, structured processthat systematically surfaced strengths and areas needing improvement.”
Security Operations Transformation
Weather Command’s security transformation focused on establishing unified visibility, continuous compliance automation, andproactive threat prevention.
Establishing Centralized Security Operations
Business Problem: Fragmented security findings across multiple sources with no single point of visibility created risk that criticalissues might be missed despite limited resources.
Solution Approach: Deploying AWS Security Hub as the operational nerve center provided single unified dashboard aggregatingfindings from continuous compliance monitoring (AWS Config), intelligent threat detection (Amazon GuardDuty), and vulnerabilityscanning (Amazon Inspector).
“AWS Security Hub’s centralized security findings management has significantly improved security operations by enabling moreeffective oversight and action on security issues,” said Burgholzer. “For a small team, this centralized visibility helps ensure nothingcritical gets missed or forgotten.”
Operational Impact:
- Security team operates from single dashboard
- Automated finding prioritization based on severity
- Real-time visibility enables proactive management
- Executive leadership gains comprehensive security reporting
Continuous Compliance and Configuration Management
Business Problem: Periodic compliance reviews required significant staff time and provided only snapshot visibility. Betweenreviews, configuration drift could introduce vulnerabilities undetected until the next assessment cycle.
Solution Approach: Implementing AWS Config enabled continuous, automated monitoring of resource configurations againstorganizational security policies and compliance standards.
Operational Impact:
- Configuration changes automatically evaluated in real-time
- Compliance violations detected immediately
- Comprehensive configuration history provides audit-ready evidence
- Proactive identification of security misconfigurations
“The implementation has notably changed day-to-day operations by driving a thorough review and improvement of security posturesaligned with AWS best practices,” Burgholzer noted. “Operations are shifting toward best-practice adherence that does not requireconstant manual oversight.”
Intelligent Threat Detection and Vulnerability Management
Business Problem: As a SaaS provider serving clients with strict security requirements, Weather Command needed assurance thatthreats would be detected quickly and vulnerabilities identified before exploitation.
Solution Approach: Deploying Amazon GuardDuty enabled continuous, intelligent threat detection using machine learning. AmazonInspector provided automated, continuous vulnerability scanning, eliminating gaps between periodic manual assessments.
Operational Impact:
- Continuous monitoring for compromised instances and unusual authentication patterns
- Automated vulnerability identification with prioritized remediation guidance
- Machine learning-based anomaly detection
- Real-time alerting enables rapid incident response
“The ability to manually fix findings or ultimately automate remediation enhances incident response, reducing delays caused bywaiting for team availability,” Burgholzer added.
Application-Level Cost Visibility Dashboard
Cloud Financial Management Transformation
The WAFR engagement identified Weather Command’s need for application-level cost visibility as critical to their business strategy.The solution focused on transforming financial operations from basic cost reporting to sophisticated product economics.
Establishing Cost Visibility and Engineering Accountability
Business Problem: Without application-level cost allocation, Weather Command couldn’t understand product-level profitability, setcompetitive pricing based on actual infrastructure costs, or enable engineering teams to make cost-conscious architecture decisions.
Solution Approach: Implementing comprehensive tagging strategy aligned with product portfolio, combined with AWS Cost andUsage Reports and CUDOS Dashboard, transformed cost data into operational intelligence.
“The CUDOS Dashboard’s strength lies in its detailed breakdown of costs by application. We can now clearly see which products aredriving spend, which are most efficient, and where we should focus optimization efforts. This visibility has become critical to ourproduct strategy and financial planning,” explained Scott Burgholzer.
Operational Impact:
- Product teams receive weekly cost reports showing application-specific spend
- Engineering decisions informed by actual cost implications
- Cost-conscious engineering culture emerges from transparent visibility
- Product managers can assess cloud margin by offering
Transforming Financial Planning and Executive Reporting
Business Problem: Board meetings and strategic planning discussions required product-line financial data that didn’t exist. Financeteams spent hours manually estimating product costs through spreadsheets.
Solution Approach: Application-level cost visibility enabled sophisticated financial modeling by product line with forecasting basedon actual product usage patterns.
Operational Impact:
- Budget planning based on product-level trend analysis
- Executive reporting enhanced with product line economics
- Investment decisions informed by actual product infrastructure costs
Outcome: Finance can model spend growth by application, improving budget accuracy and enabling reliable executive reporting.
Accelerating Cost Reporting and Analysis
Business Problem: Manual cost analysis required hours of spreadsheet work each month, producing static reports outdated by thetime they reached stakeholders.
Solution Approach: Automated dashboards replaced manual spreadsheet analysis, providing real-time cost breakdowns byapplication, service, and resource.
“The dashboard’s strength lies in its detailed breakdown of costs by resource, allowing the team to clearly see where and how costsare being incurred,” Burgholzer explained. “This visual clarity already simplifies cost management and billing comprehension, whichis an important foundational step for future cost optimization.”
Outcome: Cost reporting time reduced from hours per month to minutes per day.
Enabling Strategic Optimization and Product Strategy
Business Problem: Generic cost optimization recommendations provided limited value. Weather Command needed focusedoptimization where it would deliver maximum business impact.
Solution Approach: Application-level cost visibility enables targeted optimization focused on highest-spend applications andsupports strategic Reserved Instance and Savings Plan commitments.
Operational Impact:
- Operations focuses optimization on highest-spend applications for maximum ROI
- Product profitability analysis informs pricing strategy
- Customer unit economics enables segment profitability analysis
- Product roadmap decisions informed by cost implications
Outcome: “Now, as we grow our SaaS offerings, we can make data-driven decisions about pricing, resource allocation, and product strategy,” said Burgholzer.
Weather Command Transformation Journey
The Results:
Weather Command achieved measurable improvements across security operations, compliance automation, financial management,and strategic business enablement.
Security and Compliance Impact
Cloud Financial Management Impact
Quantifiable Business Impact
| Category | Key Outcomes |
| Security Operations | Centralized security dashboard; continuous threat detection; automated incident response workflows |
| Compliance &Governance | Significant reduction in compliance assessment time; continuous configuration monitoring; real-time compliance scoring |
| Cloud FinancialManagement | Application-level cost breakdown; product-line profitability analysis; weekly cost visibility reports;reporting reduced from hours to minutes |
| Operational Efficiency | Automated governance and security controls; proactive threat detection; engineering costvisibility; data-driven decision making |
Path Forward
Building on the WAFR foundation, Weather Command continues to enhance cloud operations maturity:
Security Operations Maturity:
- Continuous threat detection and vulnerability scanning now operational
- Security Hub serving as centralized operations hub
- Automated remediation workflows reducing manual security operations burden
- Custom Security Hub actions for common remediation scenarios planned for future implementation
“Excitement about the upcoming Inspector and GuardDuty deployments centers on enhanced monitoring capabilities and automatedvulnerability scanning,” Burgholzer said. “These tools will provide continuous detection of security threats and further strengthen oursecurity posture while alleviating operational burdens.”
Future Architecture: As Weather Command continues to scale, the next strategic milestone is deploying AWS Control Tower to manage governanceacross future multi-account architectures, with automation-first foundations ready to support multi-account expansion withoutrequiring fundamental redesign.
Partnership Excellence
“Rego Consulting’s approach combines automation with personalized, hands-on support,” Burgholzer emphasized. “They utilizeautomated tools like 6pillars.ai to significantly streamline the review process. Despite this automation, Rego maintains closeengagement through meetings to discuss results and provide tailored guidance on implementing fixes and automation.”
Partnership Value:
- Technical expertise in AWS security operations and cloud financial management
- Automation-first methodology reducing implementation time
- ISV-specific guidance addressing multi-product SaaS operational requirements
- Ongoing strategic partnership supporting continuous improvement
Key Lessons
For Security Operations
For Cloud Financial Management
For Organizational Transformation
Conclusion
Weather Command’s engagement demonstrates how comprehensive Cloud Operations modernization enables small teams toachieve enterprise-grade cloud management while supporting ISV profitability, security posture, and business growth.
“The comprehensive security roadmap strongly supports Weather Command’s growth and innovation goals by establishing ascalable, secure foundation,” Burgholzer said. “Now, as we grow our SaaS offerings, we can make data-driven decisions aboutpricing, resource allocation, and product strategy.”
Through strategic deployment of AWS-native services guided by AI-accelerated WAFR, Weather Command achieved:
- Security transformation with centralized operations, automated compliance, continuous threat detection, and audit readiness
- Financial management excellence with application-level cost visibility and product profitability analysis
- Operational efficiency with significant reduction in compliance assessment time and cost, reporting reduced from hours tominutes
- Strategic enablement with data-driven decision making supporting executive reporting
For ISVs and multi-product organizations operating on AWS, this case demonstrates how Security + Compliance + FinancialManagement automation creates a foundation for scaled, profitable, and secure cloud operations ssupporting both customertrust and business growth.
AWS Competency Validation Mapping
AWS Security Competency Alignment
| Security Category | Case Study Evidence |
| Threat Detection andResponse | Continuous threat monitoring; centralized finding aggregation; automated incident response |
| Infrastructure Protection | Continuous configuration monitoring; automated compliance controls; security baselineenforcement |
| Compliance and Privacy | Significant reduction in compliance assessment time; continuous compliance scoring;automated evidence collection |
AWS Cloud Operations – Financial Management Alignment
| Financial Management Category | Case Study Evidence |
| Cost Measurement andAccountability | Application-level cost allocation; weekly cost reports; automated chargeback;engineering cost visibility |
| Planning and Forecasting | Product-line financial modeling; improved forecast accuracy; executive reporting withproduct economics |
| Cost Reporting andVisualization | Automated dashboards reducing reporting from hours to minutes; real-time costbreakdowns; self-service reporting |
| Resource Optimization | Targeted optimization by application; ROI-focused rightsizing; measurable optimizationoutcomes |
| Financial Operations | Product profitability analysis; customer unit economics; strategic pricing based onactual costs |
About Rego Consulting
Rego Consulting specializes in automation-led cloud governance, AWS Well-Architected best practices, security operations, andCloud Financial Management consulting. As an AWS Premier Partner, Rego combines deep technical expertise with provenmethodologies to help organizations achieve secure, compliant, and cost-effective cloud operations.
Version: WC-SEC-COP-3.0 | AWS Security & Cloud Operations Competencies | November 18, 2025
This case study is provided for AWS Partner Competency validation purposes. All information has been verified with the customerand represents actual implementation results.
About Rego Consulting
Rego Consulting stands out for our real-world experience and proven, practitioner-led approach to project portfolio management (PPM), cloud migration, and IT financial management consulting. With over 200 expert guides and best practices honed since 2007, we don’t just deliver implementations—we drive business value.
We’re the global leader in Clarity and Rally Software Sales and Services, proudly holding all three of Broadcom’s top partner designations: Clarity Technology Partner, Global System Integrator Partner, and Global Expert Services Partner.
