NatWest Enhances Resilience with Multi-Region Amazon Connect

ACGR provides automated configuration replication for Amazon Connect Customer resources and Amazon Lex V2 bots across Regions. It also includes features like Traffic Distribution Groups (TDGs) for managing call and agent traffic, global agent sign-in for seamless cross-Region access, and reserved capacity in replica Regions to ensure traffic can be moved without constraints.

To manage Traffic Distribution Groups at scale, NatWest developed six custom TDG management utilities and one Amazon Lex enablement utility using Amazon Connect Customer APIs. These utilities, integrated into CI/CD pipelines, automate tasks such as associating agents and phone numbers with TDGs, updating traffic distribution percentages, and enabling global resiliency for Lex bots.

NatWest Group has implemented a multi-Region architecture for its customer experience platform, utilizing Amazon Connect Customer Global Resiliency (ACGR) and Amazon Lex Global Resiliency. This transformation enables an active-active, multi-Region setup to ensure uninterrupted service, aligning with strict regulatory compliance and business continuity requirements for financial institutions.

The initiative was driven by key factors including regulatory compliance mandating robust Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) capabilities, the need to reduce single-Region dependency, protecting customer trust through consistent service availability, and ensuring continuity for mission-critical banking operations.

The implementation spanned 20 weeks, followed by a three-month phased number porting period. NatWest emphasized the importance of starting in non-production environments to identify integration issues early, particularly concerning non-replicated resources, and highlighted the shared responsibility model in achieving multi-Region success.