Moving PCI Investigations from Manual Forensics to Deterministic, Audit Ready Workflows
Industry: Enterprise • 
Employees: 10,000+
Challenge
Manual PCI investigations and spreadsheet driven change processes could not support audit demands or enterprise scale infrastructure migration.
Solution
Automated PCI identity analysis and infrastructure workflows using Itential to deliver repeatable, auditable outcomes in minutes instead of weeks.
Why Itential
Chosen for its ability to productize automation with governance, accelerate delivery, and scale across regulated hybrid environments.
When PCI Compliance & Large-Scale Change Collide
A global enterprise delivering device protection and technical support services operates thousands of applications and networked systems across multiple data centers and hybrid cloud environments. Many of these systems fall under PCI DSS requirements, making compliance a continuous operational obligation rather than a periodic audit exercise.
As the organization prepared to migrate approximately 2,500 applications across three data centers, compliance and delivery pressures converged. Network and security teams needed to update infrastructure at scale without increasing risk, while security and governance leaders required faster, more defensible proof that PCI scoped resources were properly identified and controlled.
The existing operating model could not support both objectives simultaneously.
We were trying to move fast while still proving compliance, and those two things were constantly in tension.
Network Architect
Manual Investigations Were Accurate, But Not Sustainable
PCI investigations depended heavily on human expertise. Establishing whether an IP address was in scope required engineers to manually correlate data across multiple systems, including firewall logs, endpoint security tools, authentication platforms, and IPAM or DNS sources.
Even when performed by experienced engineers, this process typically took 45 to 60 minutes per IP address. At audit scale, that translated into weeks of effort, limited throughput, and inconsistent outcomes depending on who performed the analysis.
The challenges extended beyond time:
- Investigations did not scale during audits or security incidents.
- Results were difficult to reproduce or explain months later.
- Evidence often lived outside systems of record, increasing audit risk.
We knew the answers were right, but the process to get there was fragile and hard to defend later.
Network Architect
High-Code Automation Reached Its Practical Limits
The organization had already invested in Python-based automation to accelerate parts of its compliance and migration workflows. While effective in targeted use cases, this approach introduced new constraints as demand increased.
Automation requests quickly outpaced the team’s ability to deliver and maintain scripts. Security reviews became more frequent as dependencies aged, and each new workflow required custom development, testing, and documentation.
What the team needed was not more scripts, but a way to productize automation with governance, reuse, and auditability built in.
Why They Chose Itential
As the organization evaluated how to modernize both PCI compliance and large-scale infrastructure change, they were explicit about what would not work. They did not want another point tool, another scripting framework, or another platform that shifted governance responsibility back onto engineers.
They needed an orchestration platform that could operationalize automation across domains while embedding control, auditability, and reuse by design.
Several criteria shaped the decision.
Reduce Delivery Time Without Sacrificing Rigor
A low-code approach to workflow design allowed the team to move faster than high code scripting while still supporting complex logic, integrations, and conditional execution. Existing Python capabilities could be reused where appropriate, rather than rewritten or abandoned.
Governance & Auditability had to be Native Capabilities, Not Custom Extensions
The organization required built in lifecycle management, execution history, and versioning to support PCI evidence, internal governance reviews, and future audits. This eliminated the need to build and maintain custom compliance frameworks around automation.
Integrate Cleanly with Existing ITSM Processes
Intake, approvals, and execution had to remain connected so that infrastructure teams, security teams, and application owners could operate through familiar systems of record. Automation needed to fit into established operational workflows, not bypass them.
Orchestrate Across All Infrastructure Domains
PCI compliance and data center migration both spanned network, security, compute, and cloud platforms. Itential’s ability to coordinate actions across vendors and technologies allowed the organization to avoid siloed automation and instead build end-to-end workflows.
Operational Overhead Mattered
A SaaS deployment option reduced platform management burden, while an API-first architecture ensured the solution could integrate with existing tooling and evolve as requirements changed.
Together, these capabilities allowed the organization to shift from one off automation projects to a standardized, governed automation operating model that could scale with both compliance demands and infrastructure change.
Redefining Compliance Around Deterministic Identity
The architectural shift came from redefining how PCI scope was established. Instead of relying on manual correlation, the team defined a deterministic identity model for infrastructure resources.
Before a system could be governed or changed, automation needed to answer, with evidence:
- What the resource is and how it behaves on the network.
- What systems and users communicate with it.
- Which team owns it and under what security context.
- Whether it is in PCI scope and why.
Using Itential as the orchestration layer, the organization built workflows that automatically ingested and correlated data from network telemetry, security platforms, and asset systems. The result was a repeatable identity record that included both the conclusion and the evidence used to reach it.
We stopped asking engineers to investigate and started letting automation establish identity for us.
Network Architect
Once compliance and change were part of the same workflow, both got easier.
Network Architect
Orchestrating PCI Evidence & Infrastructure Change, at Scale
The same orchestration foundation supported both compliance and migration workflows.
For PCI investigations, automation could analyze hundreds or thousands of IP addresses in parallel, returning identity and scope determinations in minutes rather than weeks. Every execution produced a complete audit trail that could be replayed or reviewed long after the fact.
For data center migration, workflows coordinated changes across network, firewall, and load balancing infrastructure while integrating with ITSM systems for intake and approval. This ensured that:
- Application teams requested outcomes, not device level changes.
- Dependencies were identified before execution.
- All actions were recorded with full change history.
Measurable Results Across PCI Compliance & Infrastructure Operations
The shift from manual investigation and bespoke scripting to orchestrated automation produced results that were both immediate and structural. What changed was not just speed, but the organization’s ability to operate PCI compliance and infrastructure change as a repeatable system.
PCI investigations moved from hours to seconds.
The most dramatic improvement was in PCI identity and scope analysis. Prior to automation, establishing the identity and compliance context of a single IP address required 45 to 60 minutes of manual effort by a skilled engineer. This limited throughput, increased audit stress, and made large scale analysis impractical.
With orchestration in place, identity establishment dropped to approximately six seconds per IP address. The organization could submit hundreds or thousands of IPs in a single run and receive deterministic results in minutes rather than weeks.
What used to take weeks of careful investigation now runs in minutes, with better evidence.
Network Architect
2300%
Efficiency Improvement
Analysis that previously took 45-60 minutes per IP now completed in seconds.
200
IPs Analyzed in 20 minutes
Work that would have required weeks of manual effort.
1800%
Time Reduction
On a single 50-IP analysis run.
$11,000
Estimated OPEX Savings in Just 1 Month
From just one month of automated analysis.
96%
Efficiency Increase
For data center migration analysis workflows.
This fundamentally changed how the organization approached audits and security reviews. Instead of rationing analysis due to time constraints, teams could proactively validate scope and respond to requests at the speed required by auditors and stakeholders.
Operational cost and capacity gains.
Beyond time savings, the organization quantified tangible operational benefits. In one month alone, the automated PCI analysis workflows were estimated to save approximately $11,000 in operational expense by reducing manual engineering effort.
More importantly, automation freed highly skilled engineers from repetitive investigation work, allowing them to focus on architecture, validation, and higher value initiatives. This capacity recovery became increasingly important as compliance demands continued to grow.
Automation removed the guesswork from change and gave us confidence we weren’t breaking compliance as we moved.
Network Architect
Migration analysis and change coordination accelerated.
The same orchestration foundation delivered significant gains during the data center migration. By automating dependency discovery and coordinating infrastructure changes across domains, the organization achieved a 95% to 96% efficiency improvement in migration analysis workflows.
This reduced the risk of missed dependencies, eliminated spreadsheet driven coordination, and allowed migration activities to proceed without compromising compliance controls or audit readiness.
Audit readiness became durable, not episodic.
One of the most valuable outcomes was not immediately visible on a dashboard. By preserving execution history, identity evidence, and change context, the organization created a durable compliance record that could be referenced long after infrastructure had changed.
IP addresses were repurposed, systems evolved, and teams changed, but the historical evidence remained intact. When questions arose months or even years later, the organization could reconstruct what happened, what data was used, and why decisions were made.
This capability reduced risk not only during audits, but also for legal, security, and governance teams that depend on historical accuracy.
For the first time, we could go back in time and explain exactly why a decision was made.
Network Architect
A Scalable Operating Model for Regulated Infrastructure
By standardizing automation through an orchestration platform, the organization shifted from one off scripting to a governed automation operating model. Workflows became reusable services, approvals and controls were embedded, and auditability was inherent rather than added later.
This allowed engineers and architects to focus on design, validation, and optimization instead of manual correlation and repetitive execution.
With proven success in PCI compliance and data center migration, the organization expanded orchestration into additional security and infrastructure domains. The broader outcome was a sustainable model for operating regulated, hybrid infrastructure at enterprise scale, without sacrificing speed or control.
Automation stopped being a side project and became how we operate.
Network Architect
Learn More with Itential Content
Blogs
No blog posts found.
Other Resources
No other posts found.