Executive Summary
ARAI (Automotive Research Association of India), a government certification authority serving millions of citizens and industry stakeholders, partnered with TeleGlobal International to establish reliable operations for their public-facing Azure infrastructure. Through structured managed cloud operations, we maintained 99.9% uptime, achieved zero security incidents, validated 365 daily backups, and reduced infrastructure costs by 20% while ensuring government-grade compliance and audit readiness.
Customer Overview
The Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) is the leading automotive certification and testing authority in India. Operating under government oversight, ARAI provides critical services including:
• Vehicle type approval and homologation
• Emission and safety certification
• Regulatory compliance documentation
• Public access to certification records
Their public portal serves automotive manufacturers, government agencies, and citizens accessing certification information. With the infrastructure already deployed on Microsoft Azure, ARAI needed a structured operations framework to ensure the platform remained secure, available, and compliant.
The Problem Statement
After successfully deploying their public portal to Azure, ARAI faced operational challenges that threatened service quality and compliance:
The production environment was live, but there was no structured oversight. No one was actively monitoring whether backups were completing, tracking cloud costs, or watching for security vulnerabilities. Traffic spikes during policy announcements caused performance concerns, and without proactive monitoring, issues were discovered only when users reported problems.
As a government entity handling sensitive certification data, ARAI required:
• Guaranteed availability for public access
• Verified disaster recovery capabilities
• Security monitoring and exposure control
• Predictable cloud spending
• Audit-ready documentation
The infrastructure couldn’t be left to run unattended. They needed dedicated operational support to transform their environment from “deployed” to “managed.”
| Area | Challenge |
| Availability | Public portal required 24×7 accessibility with no tolerance for extended downtime |
| Performance | Traffic spikes during regulatory announcements caused response time degradation |
| Security | Government entity requiring strict exposure control and compliance monitoring |
| Recovery | No validated disaster recovery plan; backup success not systematically verified |
| Cost Control | Azure consumption not actively tracked; unexpected cost spikes went unnoticed |
| Governance | Audit requirements demanded documented evidence of security and backup practices |
Operational Approach
TeleGlobal implemented a comprehensive Managed Production Operations model built on five operational pillars:
Prevent → Detect → Respond → Recover → Report
This framework ensured proactive monitoring, rapid incident response, verified disaster recovery readiness, and complete audit documentation. Every operational activity was designed to catch problems before users experienced them.
Operational Activities
VM Monitoring and Performance Management
Daily infrastructure health monitoring ensured performance stability and caught issues before they impacted users.
• VM availability and heartbeat monitoring
• CPU utilization tracking and trend analysis
• Memory consumption monitoring
• Network throughput analysis
• Early detection of performance degradation patterns
When traffic spiked during regulatory announcements, we identified performance bottlenecks within minutes and coordinated with the application team to address them before users experienced delays.
Backup Validation and Recovery Assurance
Business continuity depends on more than just taking backups—it requires verification that those backups actually work.
• Daily backup job completion verification
• Retention policy compliance checks
• Snapshot integrity validation
• Recovery readiness testing
Over the engagement period, we validated 365 consecutive daily backups, ensuring protection against accidental deletion, VM failure, and data corruption. Every backup was verified—not assumed.
Azure Cost and Billing Governance
Proactive cost monitoring provided financial predictability and prevented billing surprises.
• Daily Azure consumption review
• Abnormal usage pattern detection
• Cost spike investigation and root cause analysis
• Monthly cost reporting to stakeholders
When we detected an unexpected 15% cost increase in month three, investigation revealed an oversized VM that could be right-sized, recovering the cost increase and providing ongoing savings.
Security Monitoring and Compliance
Continuous security posture monitoring using Microsoft Defender for Cloud ensured government-grade protection.
• Network Security Group (NSG) rule validation
• Restricted inbound port verification
• Just-In-Time (JIT) SSH access enforcement
• Public exposure verification
• High and medium severity alert remediation
All security recommendations were addressed within documented SLA timeframes. No unauthorized access attempts succeeded, and zero security incidents occurred during the engagement.
Application Availability Support
Beyond infrastructure monitoring, we validated end-to-end service availability from the citizen perspective.
• HTTP/HTTPS accessibility validation
• Infrastructure-level troubleshooting
• Coordination with application development team
• Performance degradation investigation
Change and Incident Management
Structured support for both planned changes and emergency incidents.
• Configuration updates and security rule changes
• Incident recovery assistance
• Stability restoration procedures
• Post-incident documentation
We handled 24 planned changes and 7 unplanned incidents over the engagement period, with average incident resolution time of under 45 minutes.
Documentation and Compliance Reporting
Government audits require evidence, not just assurances. We maintained comprehensive operational records.
• Backup validation proof with timestamps
• Security posture screenshots and reports
• Monitoring logs and performance trends
• Incident resolution documentation
All evidence was audit-ready and available on demand, ensuring compliance verification without last-minute scrambling.
Business Impact
The managed operations engagement delivered measurable improvements across reliability, security, and cost control.
| Metric | Result |
| Infrastructure Uptime | 99.9% availability maintained over 12-month engagement |
| Backup Reliability | 365 consecutive daily backups validated with zero failures |
| Security Posture | Zero security incidents; no unauthorized exposure detected |
| Incident Response | Average resolution time under 45 minutes (7 incidents handled) |
| Performance | No prolonged performance degradation; traffic spikes handled proactively |
| Cost Management | 20% reduction in Azure spending through right-sizing and monitoring |
| Audit Readiness | Complete documentation available on demand for compliance verification |
Business Value Delivered
Beyond technical metrics, the engagement delivered tangible business outcomes:
- The portal remained consistently available for citizens, manufacturers, and government agencies.
- Continuous monitoring ensured compliance with required security standards.
- Regular backup validation confirmed data could be reliably restored.
- Clear, audit-ready documentation removed compliance uncertainty.
- Ongoing cost monitoring prevented unexpected billing.
- Proactive monitoring identified issues early, reducing service risk.
Conclusion
Infrastructure deployment is just the beginning. Real value comes from consistent, proactive operations that keep systems secure, available, and compliant.
Through structured managed operations, ARAI transformed their Azure environment from a “deployed and forgotten” setup into a professionally managed, secure, and auditable platform. The public portal now operates with the reliability and security that citizens and industry stakeholders expect from a government authority.
By the Numbers
- 99.9% infrastructure uptime
- 365 consecutive daily backups validated
- 20% cost reduction through optimization
- 45-minute average incident resolution time
- 24 planned changes executed without service disruption
- 7 incidents resolved with minimal user impact