Regional Cloud Platform Transformation

Context

A growing life sciences technology company was expanding its cloud platform into a new region and could not afford another one-off implementation. The goal wasn’t just to deploy a new region. It was to create the capability to deploy the next one more easily.

Challenge

• Infrastructure patterns had evolved over time, not around a framework.
• Existing Terraform needed completing, hardening and standardising.
• Platform components were configured inconsistently.
• Regional expansion raised networking and data-residency requirements.
• Deployment knowledge sat with a small team.

Approach

A platform, not just an environment. Instead of building infrastructure for one environment and repeating the exercise for the next, we delivered reusable Terraform modules, environment-driven configuration and region-aware deployment patterns. Differences belong in configuration, and the infrastructure code is reused wherever possible.

One platform pattern. The network foundation (VPC, subnets, firewall controls and private connectivity with no default public exposure) sits under a core platform of Kubernetes, databases, caching, identity and delivery. Supporting services cover storage, least-privilege access policies, backups and naming standards, all delivered through the client’s existing CI/CD.

Standardisation by design. We standardised the environment and regional configuration structure, naming conventions, Terraform variables and modules, IAM and security settings, and the split between platform modules and environment config. The result is less effort per new environment, easier troubleshooting, less configuration drift and less reliance on tribal knowledge.

Security built into the platform. An automated review of the existing infrastructure code found issues that we assessed, triaged and remediated in Terraform: 14 findings fixed and 8 addressed. Where remediation depended on application changes (cache authentication and TLS, database SSL, Kubernetes RBAC and database versions), findings were documented and handed to the client’s engineering backlog rather than suppressed.

Availability and cost together. We reviewed the database architecture rather than copying it. High availability went where resilience justified it, backup and recovery were aligned to production needs, and unnecessary read replicas were avoided.

Designed for what comes next. The client asked for regional scalability. We made sure the structure wouldn’t prevent future cloud scalability either: additional providers can be added as provider-specific modules with the same deployment and configuration model, and no repository redesign.

Value outside the brief

Alongside the platform work, and outside the contracted scope, a cloud spend review found roughly 7.75 TB of potentially removable persistent storage (legacy and temporary build disks), plus a GPU-backed Windows workload running around the clock without needing to. Together that’s an estimated £13,356–£13,836 a year in savings, and up to a 67–70% reduction in the reviewed compute spend.

Results

• Repeatable: environments recreated through a common Terraform framework.
• Standardised: core services follow consistent patterns.
• Secure: findings remediated, or captured for follow-up.
• Operable: documentation and knowledge transfer enable internal ownership.
• Scalable: the foundation supports more environments and regions.
• Cost-aware: architecture and cloud spend reviewed for savings.

The real test was adoption. After technical walkthroughs, an engineering demo and knowledge transfer, the client’s engineers were already making platform changes themselves. That is the difference between delivering code and delivering capability.