About the Customer

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Nigeria’s central payment infrastructure organization serves as the backbone of the country’s electronic payment ecosystem, facilitating interbank settlements and operating critical payment switching systems. As the hub for Nigeria’s instant payment network, the institution processes millions of daily transactions across banks, fintechs, and government agencies, enabling real-time payments and digital financial services for over 200 million Nigerians.

Operating the Nigeria Instant Payment (NIP) system and other critical infrastructure, the organization ensures 24/7 availability under strict Central Bank of Nigeria compliance requirements. Its infrastructure supports instant transfers, bulk payments, and other national financial services—making reliability and performance vital for Nigeria’s economic stability.

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Customer Challenge

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By mid-2024, the organization’s legacy on-premises systems were straining to keep up with Nigeria’s growing digital payment demands. Single points of failure in payment processing created unacceptable risks, and performance degraded significantly during peak periods—delaying millions of transactions.

Manual failover for critical systems such as Kafka queues and Redis caching layers caused prolonged outages during incidents, directly impacting the national payment ecosystem.

Key challenges included:

• Infrastructure Scalability Limits — Legacy systems could not scale dynamically to meet peak transaction volumes
• Single Points of Failure — Critical components lacked proper high-availability design
• Manual Recovery Processes — Lengthy interventions extended downtime during failures
• Limited Disaster Recovery — Backup capabilities were inadequate for nationwide disruptions
• Operational Complexity — Managing distributed infrastructure without modern orchestration tools increased overhead and errors
• Regulatory Pressure — Central Bank mandates demanded improved resilience and availability

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Partner Solution

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In July 2024, the provider partnered with Qucoon, an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner, to modernize its infrastructure with AWS Site 3—a scalable cloud foundation for the nation’s payment systems.

Qucoon conducted a full assessment of payment architectures and regulatory requirements, then deployed an AWS Landing Zone with enterprise-grade security and governance tailored to financial services.

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AWS Landing Zone Foundation

A robust multi-account structure separated Security, Applications, and Infrastructure organizational units (OUs). Security accounts centralized audit logging and monitoring; Application OUs isolated production, testing, and development; Infrastructure OUs managed network connectivity and shared services.

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High-Availability Kafka

Apache Kafka clusters were deployed across multiple AWS Availability Zones using Amazon EC2 optimized for high-throughput messaging. Auto Scaling, cross-zone replication, provisioned-IOPS EBS, and CloudWatch monitoring ensured consistent performance, durability, and resilience.

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Redis Caching Layer

Amazon ElastiCache for Redis was implemented with Multi-AZ deployments for sub-millisecond transaction latency. Redis Cluster mode enabled horizontal scaling, and automatic failover ensured uninterrupted payment processing.

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NIP & NUS High Availability

Secure hybrid connectivity (via AWS VPN) integrated on-prem NIP and NUS systems with AWS Site 3. Real-time replication, load balancing across AZs, and automated failover eliminated single points of failure and maintained continuous service.

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Network Security & Connectivity

Comprehensive VPN links connected data centers to AWS with secure, low-latency communication for payment traffic. AWS VPC isolation, Direct Connect (for high-bandwidth consistency), CloudFormation (for IaC), plus CloudWatch and CloudTrail delivered compliance-ready monitoring and automated management.

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Primary AWS Services Used

• Amazon EC2 — Compute for Kafka and Redis workloads
• Amazon EBS — Provisioned IOPS storage for high-throughput persistence
• Amazon ElastiCache for Redis — Managed caching layer with Multi-AZ failover
• AWS VPC & VPN — Secure, low-latency hybrid connectivity
• AWS Auto Scaling — Dynamic capacity for transaction peaks
• AWS CloudFormation — Infrastructure as code for consistent deployments
• Amazon CloudWatch — Real-time monitoring and alerting
• AWS CloudTrail — Full audit logging for compliance
• AWS Organizations — Multi-account governance and security controls
• Amazon Route 53 — DNS and routing for HA configurations
• AWS Systems Manager — Centralized operational management

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Results and Benefits

The AWS Site 3 migration, completed September 2024, delivered major gains in reliability, performance, and operational efficiency.

Infrastructure Resilience

• 99.99% Availability — Multi-AZ design eliminated single points of failure
• 50% Faster Recovery — Automated failover cut recovery time from hours to minutes
• Zero Data Loss — Cross-zone replication and automated backups safeguarded all transactions

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Performance Enhancements

• 300% More Throughput — Auto-scaling handled 15 million+ daily transactions at peak without degradation
• 60% Faster Response Times — Redis caching and Kafka optimization improved transaction speed
• 95% Fewer Bottlenecks — Elastic infrastructure removed capacity constraints during peaks

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Operational Efficiency

• 70% Less Manual Work — Automation reduced interventions, freeing staff for strategic tasks
• Complete Audit Compliance — CloudTrail simplified regulatory reporting
• 40% Lower Operational Costs — Cloud elasticity reduced infra and personnel costs

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Business Impact

• Enhanced Service Reliability — Millions of Nigerians benefited from stable instant payments
• Regulatory Compliance — Architecture met CBN resilience and availability mandates
• Elastic Growth Capacity — AWS foundation scaled seamlessly for future expansion

The solution scaled to handle 15 million+ daily transactions with sub-second response times and 99.99% uptime across all critical services.

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Lessons Learned

• Legacy Docs ≠ Reality — In-depth system discovery prevented costly surprises
• Network Redundancy Is Vital — Backup paths proved critical to peak-load reliability
• Production-Scale Baselines — Load thresholds required real peak-traffic testing
• Data Migration Complexity — Redis sync demanded contingency windows and rollback plans
• Clear Ownership Matters — Defined RACI models avoided cross-team delays
• Kafka Partition Strategy — Needed production-scale validation under real loads
• Knowledge Transfer Is a Project — Cloud-native ops required dedicated training
• App-Level Optimization — Auto-scaling effective only after refactoring payment logic

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About the Partner

Qucoon is an AWS Advanced Consulting Partner specializing in enterprise cloud migration for financial services. With expertise in payment-system architecture and regulatory compliance, Qucoon helps institutions modernize infrastructure securely and efficiently.

Through its cloud migration solutions and modern infrastructure designs, Qucoon enables payment providers to achieve scalability, resilience, and operational efficiency while meeting the stringent standards of financial-services regulation.