Getting a Real Answer to “Who Has AWS Access?” with Border0

From AWS Access Chaos to One-Command Confidence

When a fast-growing fintech based in Australia expanded its cloud footprint, access quietly became one of its biggest productivity drains.

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The company had accumulated more than 50 AWS accounts over time -- across teams, projects, and environments. Kubernetes usage was accelerating, MongoDB was becoming the standard data layer, and CI/CD workflows were starting to span accounts. Nothing was “broken,” but everything took longer than it should.

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For the infrastructure team, simply getting to the right resource meant juggling AWS CLI profiles, swapping contexts, and double-checking permissions. It worked, but it was fragile, slow, and easy to get wrong.
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As one engineer put it: “Stuff was just all over the shop.”

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The Turning Point

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Border0 was introduced initially as a way to simplify access. But the impact was immediate, and bigger than expected.

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Instead of wrestling with complex AWS config files and profile switching, engineers could reach what they needed with a simple command. If access didn’t exist yet, deploying a connector took minutes. Suddenly, moving between environments --across dozens of AWS accounts -- felt effortless.

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“I can pretty much get to anything quickly now,” the engineer said. “It solved pretty much every AWS access issue we had.”

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What used to require four or five careful steps became muscle memory.

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Kubernetes Without the Context Pain

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Kubernetes quickly became the center of gravity for the team’s workloads. Managing eight or nine clusters across accounts meant constant context switching—and constant risk of mistakes.

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Border0 changed that dynamic. Engineers could switch Kubernetes contexts directly from the Border0 app and use the built-in Kubernetes web client for fast visibility into cluster health, pods, and logs. It wasn’t meant to replace the CLI, but it removed friction when quick answers were needed.

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That alone led to an unexpected decision: the team canceled their Lens subscriptions.

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“Lens was really just giving me everything I can now get through the Border0 front end,” the engineer explained. For a terminal-first team, Border0 delivered exactly what they needed, without another paid tool in the stack.

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CI/CD and MongoDB, Without the Networking Headaches

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The real stress test came with CI/CD.

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The company runs self-hosted Kubernetes runners in one AWS account, while application environments (and MongoDB) live in others. Historically, connecting those pieces meant VPC peering, cross-account permissions, and infrastructure that was difficult to audit and maintain.

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Border0 simplified the entire path.

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GitHub Actions runners connected securely to MongoDB across accounts without complex networking gymnastics. Replica sets worked cleanly. DNS issues that had blocked progress disappeared. And despite early skepticism about using “a VPN,” there was no noticeable performance impact.

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“If you’ve ever done account-to-account permissions in AWS, you know how painful it is,” the engineer said. “This just worked.”

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Visibility and Audit Readiness, Without the Pain

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While compliance wasn’t the primary driver, Border0 delivered immediate peace of mind.

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Instead of digging through IAM, CloudTrail, or CloudWatch, the team could see access visually: who had access to what, and where. That visibility surfaced a few unexpected permission overlaps, and made audits dramatically simpler.

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“I can literally take a screenshot and say, ‘Here’s who has access to production,’” the engineer noted. Compared to IAM? It's incredibly simple and straightforward.

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Support That Feels Like a Team, Not a Ticket Queue

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What truly sealed the experience wasn’t just the product, it was the people behind it.

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When the team ran into an issue involving ephemeral GitHub runners and MongoDB access, they didn’t open a ticket. They dropped into a shared Slack channel with the Border0 engineers. The conversation was direct, technical, and collaborative.

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Within roughly a day, Border0 shipped an improvement that not only fixed the issue, but became part of the customer’s production workflow.

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“I don’t want to deal with ticketing systems,” the engineer said. “I just want to talk to someone who understands the problem.”

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That responsiveness turned Border0 from a tool into something more trusted: infrastructure the team could build on.

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From Gatekeeping to Unblocking

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As more developers came on board, access requests shifted from friction to flow.

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Instead of complex explanations or one-off workarounds, the answer became simple: “Just use Border0.” Developers got the access they needed. Infrastructure stayed secure. And the infra team spent less time policing and more time enabling.

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One engineer summed it up best: "It has solved pretty much every access issue that we have come across for AWS, getting to our resources in a quick and efficient way, but also in a secure way as well."

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Results

• Dramatically faster access across 50+ AWS accounts
• Simplified Kubernetes operations and Lens eliminated
• Secure, auditable CI/CD connectivity across AWS accounts
• Clear visibility into access without living in IAM or CloudTrail
• Higher developer adoption and less infrastructure friction

The Takeaway

For this fintech, Border0 wasn’t just a better way to connect, it became the access control plane for modern infrastructure.

Not a VPN, not another tool to manage, but a faster, clearer way to work.

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