Platform & Data Migration with Security Enhancement

The client & their challenge

Tecnic was battling a two-front technical crisis that threatened their digital operations:

The combined effect threatened Tecnic’s market leadership position and created unsustainable operational costs at a time when digital excellence had become non-negotiable in the driver education industry.

The Solution

Dedicatted’s solution leveraged a modern GitOps and Infrastructure as Code (IaC) approach to transform Tecnic’s digital environment. This operational framework applied DevOps best practices typically used for application development—version control, collaboration, compliance, and CI/CD—to infrastructure automation, creating a cohesive and streamlined technical ecosystem.

After careful assessment, the Dedicatted team recommended migrating from the problematic OpenStack environment to AWS EKS for Kubernetes management and AWS RDS for database services.

The implementation followed a comprehensive infrastructure modernization strategy:

• Infrastructure Management
  All infrastructure was defined and managed through Terraform using the IaC approach, with code stored in GitHub and state managed by Terraform Enterprise.
• Secret Management
  Sensitive information was migrated to AWS Parameter Store and retrieved using External Secret Operator, enhancing security practices.
• Domain Management
  External DNS was implemented to automate domain provisioning into Route 53, simplifying DNS management.
• High Availability
  A dual-layer scaling solution was deployed combining Karpenter for cluster-level scaling and Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) for application-level scaling.
• CI/CD Pipeline
  A modern delivery pipeline was established using GitHub Actions for continuous integration and ArgoCD for continuous deployment, creating a true GitOps workflow.
  

The results

The migration to AWS EKS and implementation of the GitOps approach delivered meaningful, quantifiable improvements for Tecnic:

Business Impact

The solution transformed Tecnic’s digital operations in several critical areas:

• Increased Automation
  The adoption of GitOps principles eliminated numerous manual interventions, creating a streamlined deployment process that reduced human error and accelerated delivery timelines.
• Improved Security & Compliance
  Centralized secret management through AWS Parameter Store and version-controlled infrastructure significantly enhanced Tecnic’s security posture, effectively addressing their vulnerability to DDoS attacks.
• Optimized Resource Utilization
  The combination of Karpenter and Horizontal Pod Autoscaler ensured efficient scaling that automatically adjusted to traffic patterns, reducing costs while maintaining optimal performance during peak registration periods.
• Faster Deployments
  The CI/CD pipeline built with GitHub Actions and ArgoCD enabled rapid and reliable deployments, minimizing errors and reducing deployment time from days to hours.
• Enhanced Reliability
  Automated infrastructure and application scaling dramatically improved uptime and system resilience, ensuring Tecnic’s website remained available even during periods of unexpected traffic surges.

Long-term Benefits

Beyond the immediate improvements, the solution continues to deliver ongoing value:

• Increased Platform Availability
  The new architecture maintains 99.9% uptime, ensuring prospective students can access registration and information services reliably.
• Sustainable Cost Savings
  The optimized infrastructure continues to provide predictable, reduced monthly cloud expenditures without compromising performance.
• Reduced Operational Burden
  With minimal human involvement required for infrastructure management, Tecnic’s IT team can focus on business innovation rather than infrastructure maintenance.
• Future-Proof Architecture
  The modular, GitOps-based approach enables Tecnic to easily adopt new technologies and scale their digital presence as their business continues to grow across Quebec.

The transformation has positioned Tecnic to maintain their market leadership through technological excellence, turning what was once a vulnerability into a competitive advantage.

Conclusions

Dedicatted transformed Tecnic’s vulnerable digital infrastructure into a secure, efficient platform that supports Quebec’s leading driving school. Through strategic migration to AWS and implementation of GitOps practices, Tecnic now enjoys enhanced security, reduced costs, and simplified operations while maintaining their market leadership position.

Ready to modernize your infrastructure? Whether you’re in education, healthcare, retail or finance, our proven approach can help your organization overcome security challenges, reduce operational overhead, and optimize cloud spending. Contact Dedicatted today to explore how our AWS expertise and GitOps implementation can transform your digital foundation.