Comunet Case Study: AWS Workspaces and Landing Zone for AFSS

AFSS is a South Australian, Aboriginal community-controlled organisation dedicated to supporting Aboriginal children, families, and communities.

Established in 1978, AFSS plays a critical role in child protection, family reunification, and culturally responsive care. With over 245 staff across 22 locations, AFSS ensures that Aboriginal children maintain cultural connections and that families are supported in healing and staying together.

AFSS’s legacy desktop infrastructure was fragmented and difficult to manage across its distributed workforce. Staff at different sites experienced inconsistent access to systems, and IT teams faced challenges with endpoint management,
policy enforcement, and remote support.

Comunet, an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner with Non-Profit and Migration & Modernisation Competencies, designed and implemented a secure digital workplace solution using AWS WorkSpaces within a customized AWS Landing Zone.

Architecture and AWS Services Delivered:

• AWS WorkSpaces: Delivered secure, cloud-based desktops accessible from any location, enabling staff to work remotely with consistent performance.

• AWS Landing Zone: Established a multi-account architecture with centralized logging, security controls, and backup capabilities, forming the foundation for future cloud workloads.

• Amazon VPC: Provided isolated networking environments for each workload, ensuring segmentation and security.

• AWS CloudTrail & GuardDuty: Enabled auditing and threat detection across the environment.

• AWS Config: Enforced compliance through rule-based configuration checks aligned with aged care data governance.

• Directory Services AD Connector: Integrated WorkSpaces with Active Directory for seamless authentication and centralized policy enforcement.

Comunet also provided full lifecycle support including:

• Pre-deployment planning and architecture design workshops with AFSS stakeholders.
• On-site and remote enablement and installation of  WorkSpaces clients and monitoring tools.
• Post-deployment monitoring, optimization, and governance reviews.
• Ongoing support for workload migration planning and Landing Zone expansion.

AFSS leadership endorsed the solution for its impact on user experience, IT efficiency, and strategic readiness for cloud transformation.

• Operational Efficiency: AFSS staff gained consistent, secure access to systems across all sites, reducing login issues and improving productivity.

• Governance & Compliance: Centralized identity management and policy enforcement improved the organization’s security posture and compliance requirements.

• Scalability: The Landing Zone supports future expansion and workload migration, including server and application hosting.

• Cost Savings: AFSS reduced endpoint management overhead, improved IT resource utilization, and avoided capital expenditure on physical infrastructure.

• Time Savings: IT support response times improved by 40%, and onboarding new staff with WorkSpaces was reduced from days to hours.

For over 30 years Comunet has been designing and implementing IT strategies that leverage technology to achieve business objectives for small businesses, through to enterprise organisations. With expertise across all areas of IT including strategic consulting, cloud technology, cyber security, and software, we help clients on their digital transformation journey. Through our partnerships with leading global vendors, we deliver the best technology solutions effectively and efficiently.

To learn more about how Comunet can assist your organisation with cloud migration, please contact us.