How BeyondTrust embedded Amazon QuickSight for identity security insights

This post was co-authored with Rob Sullivan, Aaqib Mohammed, and Santhosh Rajan from BeyondTrust.

At BeyondTrust, we develop solutions that help organizations strengthen their identity security posture through actionable insights. As part of the Engineering team behind BeyondTrust’s Identity Security Insights product, we faced the challenge of efficiently transforming raw data from our data lake into meaningful visualizations for our customers. In this post, we share how we used the embedded analytics capabilities of Amazon QuickSight to revolutionize our reporting infrastructure, streamline our development process, and deliver enhanced value to our customers.

Challenges with data visualization

Prior to implementing QuickSight, our team struggled with several limitations in our data visualization capabilities. We lacked a unified toolset for creating visualizations, which meant most charts and controls had to be custom-built or sourced from third-party libraries. This approach not only created significant development overhead but also posed challenges in surfacing data across multiple service layers and databases efficiently. We needed a way to rapidly build and deploy dashboards while maintaining security and scalability.

Why Amazon QuickSight?

When selecting our business intelligence (BI) solution, we conducted a thorough assessment of available tools before making our final decision. After careful evaluation, we chose QuickSight for these key reasons:

• Robust security architecture:
  • Features dedicated namespaces for tenant isolation
  • Includes row-level security capabilities
  • Aligns with multi-tenant architecture requirements
• Seamless integration capabilities:
  • Allows direct embedding of dashboards
  • Supports integration of dashboard editing interface
  • Provides flexibility for product integration
• Cost-effective managed solution
  • Offers a flexible pricing model
  • Provides a fully managed service
  • Alleviates the need for additional infrastructure maintenance

Implementation journey

Our QuickSight implementation strategy focused on creating a comprehensive development and deployment pipeline. We established a separate QuickSight account for development, so our team could rapidly prototype and iterate on dashboards. This environment became crucial for maintaining a fast feedback loop during development.

We implemented a streamlined continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) process to efficiently manage our dashboard deployments. Using a custom Python tool and AWS CloudFormation, we established an automated system that handles the entire workflow from development to production. The process begins with dashboard extraction from our development environment and progresses through a structured pipeline that includes automated reviews, standardized settings application, and multi-Region deployment capabilities.

Our solution uses AWS CloudFormation for its reliability and rollback features, with a nested stack architecture that manages dependencies effectively. The entire process, from initial commit to production deployment, takes just 15–30 minutes, complete with automated quality checks and monitoring through Datadog. This approach has given us a robust, maintainable system that handles both routine updates and maintenance tasks while providing consistent deployment across our entire infrastructure.

The following illustration shows how Identity Security Insights data flows from its collectors into our data lake, and then into QuickSight for reporting and analytics. It also depicts the development area and the CI/CD process used to promote dashboards from development to production.

Custom presentation layer

As an independent software vendor (ISV), we wanted to provide our users with a seamless experience. Rather than exposing QuickSight directly, we developed a custom interface for our embedded dashboards. Working closely with our UX team, we created an intuitive card-based layout that includes dashboard names, descriptions, and search functionality, as illustrated in the following screenshot. This interface enhancement has significantly improved dashboard discoverability and user experience.

Identity Security Risk Assessment dashboard

One of our most successful implementations has been the Identity Security Risk Assessment dashboard. This initiative emerged organically as our solution architects recognized the potential of QuickSight to address specific customer needs.

The dashboard provides a comprehensive walkthrough of key security risks and offers contextual guidance for remediation. The following screenshot shows an example of the dashboard and the Exposure tab, containing insights such as potential abuse, compromises, or attacks.

The following screenshot shows an example of the Summary tab of the dashboard, highlighting key findings and presenting suggested guidance.

What makes this particularly noteworthy is that we were able to build and release this dashboard in under a week, demonstrating the agility of QuickSight in responding to customer needs.

Technical benefits and business impact

The implementation of QuickSight has transformed our development lifecycle. We were able to get data displayed in our user interface approximately 89.3% faster after implementing this solution. Tasks that previously took weeks can now be completed in days. We’ve achieved approximately 60% reduction in operating costs through optimized service usage and improved database utilization. The solution has also democratized dashboard creation within our organization, so a broader range of team members can contribute to content development.

Future plans

Looking ahead, we’re excited to expand our QuickSight implementation by incorporating additional features such as Amazon Q in QuickSight, enhanced editor capabilities, and pixel-perfect reports. We aim to position QuickSight as the consolidated analytics and reporting solution across BeyondTrust’s entire product portfolio, optimizing our data insights capabilities and delivering enhanced value to our customers. We intend to broaden QuickSight deployment to encompass additional commercial AWS Regions and AWS GovCloud environments.

Conclusion

Our journey with QuickSight has demonstrated how the right analytics solution can transform not just reporting capabilities, but entire product development processes. With the combination of robust security features, flexible embedding options, and efficient deployment pipelines, we can deliver more value to our customers while significantly reducing development overhead. As we continue to expand our use of QuickSight, we’re confident in our ability to provide increasingly sophisticated analytics solutions that help organizations better understand and improve their security posture.

To learn more about how QuickSight can transform your organization’s analytics capabilities, we invite you to explore further resources. Visit the Amazon QuickSight product page to discover its full range of features and capabilities. For a deeper dive into embedding QuickSight in your applications, see Embedded analytics for Amazon QuickSight. Finally, for those looking to enhance their identity security posture, we encourage you to try our free Identity Security Risk Assessment tool, powered by QuickSight, available on the BeyondTrust website.

About the authors

Rob Sullivan is the Director of Engineering and has been a key member of BeyondTrust since 2017, bringing a deep passion for data and reporting to his work on product development. He collaborates closely with customers and stakeholders to craft data-driven features that deliver real value and insight. Rob’s commitment to turning complex information into actionable outcomes helps shape the evolution of BeyondTrust’s products.

Aaqib Mohammed is a Software Developer at BeyondTrust, focused on frontend development for enterprise applications. Aaqib is responsible for building scalable Angular-based interfaces and integrating tools like Amazon QuickSight into BeyondTrust’s platforms to support data-driven decision-making. With expertise in micro-frontend architecture, dynamic form handling, and state management optimization, Aaqib plays a key role in delivering responsive, user-centric experiences across the organization’s products.

Santhosh Rajan is a Senior Software Engineer at BeyondTrust, where he has been a core member of the Engineering team since 2021. He is responsible for designing and architecting scalable, user-centric products that deliver lasting business value. Santhosh brings deep technical expertise, along with a strong sense of curiosity and commitment to innovation. He plays a key role in advancing BeyondTrust’s product strategy and driving the evolution of secure, cloud-based solutions.

Sunil Yerkola is a Solutions Architect at AWS. He supports customers in ISVs and helps them build highly scalable, cost-optimized cloud solutions. Sunil has been with AWS for over 3 years, helping customers migrate and scale their infrastructure on AWS. Sunil enjoys spending time with his family and friends, and watching or playing sports.