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Success Stories / AWS Native Kubernetes Solution Implementation

AWS Native Kubernetes Solution Implementation

A global humanitarian organization serving 118+ countries partnered with Matoffo to transform their inefficient serverless infrastructure into a scalable, enterprise-grade Kubernetes solution on AWS.
Amazon EKSAWS Cloud ArchitectureHumanitarian Services
19 min read

Executive Summary

A global humanitarian organization serving 118+ countries partnered with Matoffo to transform their inefficient serverless infrastructure into a scalable, enterprise-grade Kubernetes solution on AWS. Facing fragmented service management, lengthy deployment cycles, and security vulnerabilities from manual processes, the company needed a unified platform capable of supporting its mission-critical operations across multiple regions. Matoffo delivered a cloud-native AWS EKS solution with complete containerization, GitOps automation via ArgoCD, and Infrastructure-as-Code using Terraform, enabling 90%+ faster deployments (from 45 days to hours), 65%+ staff time savings through automation, and seamless scalability supporting multiple environments with zero-touch provisioning – empowering them to focus resources on their humanitarian mission rather than infrastructure management.

Client Background

A global humanitarian organization with over two decades of experience developing healthcare and education networks across 118+ countries. The organization delivers targeted programs designed to create sustainable change in local communities, companies, and organizations worldwide. As a rapid-response humanitarian agency, it operates multifaceted service platforms providing immediate assistance during crises while maintaining long-term development initiatives. The organization’s distributed operations require robust, reliable technology infrastructure capable of supporting field teams, partner organizations, and beneficiaries across diverse geographic regions with varying connectivity and resource constraints.

Client's Feedback

5.0
Review verified

"The client is happy with Matoffo's work, as they've successfully migrated their systems, automated their processes, and reduced the overhead cost of environment deployment. Matoffo has delivered on time, demonstrating independence and a great skill set. Thus, the client has extended the engagement."

C-level Executive,

Customer Challenge

As service portfolios expanded globally and operational complexity increased, their fragmented infrastructure created cascading operational inefficiencies, security vulnerabilities, and resource constraints that threatened service reliability and limited organizational agility.

Key Business Challenges:

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Security Vulnerabilities From Manual Secret Management:

Inefficient secret injection and management practices created compliance risks and potential data exposure across services handling sensitive beneficiary information.
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Prolonged Deployment Cycles Constraining Agility:

Application deployment processes stretching 45 days from development to production prevented rapid response to field requirements and emergencies.
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Operational Inefficiency Through Fragmentation:

Infrastructure managed each service independently despite sharing fundamental components, creating duplicated effort and inconsistent configurations across the organization.

These operational pressures threatened the ability to scale humanitarian services efficiently while maintaining the security, reliability, and compliance standards required for international aid operations.

Goals and Requirements

In response to fragmented infrastructure, prolonged deployment cycles, and mounting security concerns, the company established clear objectives to transform its technology platform into a unified, scalable, and secure foundation supporting its global humanitarian mission.

Performance Targets

  • Accelerate Deployment Velocity:

    Reduce deployment cycles from 45 days to hours through complete automation, enabling rapid response to field requirements and emergencies.

  • Improve Infrastructure Efficiency:

    Consolidate fragmented services into a unified Kubernetes platform with consistent configuration management, eliminating duplicated effort across similar services.

  • Enable Multi-Environment Scalability:

    Create the ability to provision complete environments from scratch within hours using Infrastructure-as-Code, supporting geographic expansion and disaster recovery requirements.

Financial & Operational Targets

  • Reduce Engineering Overhead:

    Decrease infrastructure management time by 65%+ through automation, freeing technical staff to focus on humanitarian program support rather than operational maintenance.

Scalability & Reliability

  • Unified Container Orchestration:

    Deploy Amazon EKS as a centralized platform managing all services with consistent security, monitoring, and deployment patterns across the organization.

  • GitOps-Driven Automation:

    Implement ArgoCD for declarative application deployment with version control, automated synchronization, and rollback capabilities, ensuring deployment reliability.

The Solution

To eliminate infrastructure fragmentation and establish unified platform operations, Matoffo delivered a cloud-native Kubernetes solution on Amazon EKS with complete containerization, GitOps automation, and Infrastructure-as-Code management – designed for humanitarian organizations requiring global scale, security, and operational resilience.

  1. 1

    Service Containerization and Architecture Standardization

    The transformation began by analyzing Laravel PHP services to identify shared architectural patterns across applications. Each service was decomposed into standardized components: web servers, FPM servers, queue workers, and cron jobs.
  2. 2

    Amazon EKS Cluster Deployment with Enterprise Capabilities

    A production-ready Amazon EKS cluster was deployed across multiple availability zones, providing fault-tolerant Kubernetes orchestration. The cluster was configured with Karpenter for intelligent node autoscaling, automatically provisioning appropriately-sized EC2 instances based on workload requirements and resource requests.
  3. 3

    GitOps Implementation with ArgoCD and Automated CI/CD

    ArgoCD was deployed as the GitOps orchestration platform, establishing Git repositories as the single source of truth for application configurations. The GitLab CI pipeline was redesigned to build container images, run automated tests, and update Git repositories upon successful builds.
  4. 4

    Centralized Secret Management with HashiCorp Vault

    HashiCorp Vault was integrated with Kubernetes using the Vault Sidecar Injector pattern, automatically injecting secrets into pods at runtime without storing sensitive data in container images or Kubernetes manifests.
  5. 5

    Observability Stack and Private Network Access

    Prometheus and Grafana were deployed for comprehensive cluster and application monitoring, with custom dashboards providing visibility into resource utilization, application performance, and deployment status. Alert Manager integration sent notifications to Slack for critical events, ensuring rapid incident response. An OpenVPN-based VPN server was established to provide secure administrative access to resources in private subnets, ensuring infrastructure components remained isolated from the public internet while enabling authorized access. All infrastructure was deployed using Terraform, codifying environment configuration and enabling consistent replication across regions.

Results and Impact

Before the solution

Infrastructure managed each service independently with manual deployment processes requiring 45 days. Engineering teams spent over half their time on infrastructure maintenance rather than humanitarian program support. Configuration inconsistencies across services created troubleshooting difficulties and deployment unpredictability. Manual secret management created security vulnerabilities and compliance concerns.

After the solution

The unified Amazon EKS platform manages all services with consistent configuration and automated deployment. GitOps-driven automation reduced deployment cycles from 45 days to hours. Infrastructure-as-Code enables complete environment provisioning from scratch in hours. Centralized secret management with HashiCorp Vault eliminated security vulnerabilities from manual practices. Engineering teams reallocated 65%+ of time from infrastructure maintenance to humanitarian program support.

Quantitative Outcomes

  • Deployment cycles reduced from approximately 45 days to hours through GitOps automation with ArgoCD, enabling rapid response to field requirements and emergencies.

  • Infrastructure management overhead decreased from 14 staff-hours to 5 staff-hours weekly, freeing technical teams to focus on humanitarian program support rather than operational maintenance.

  • Complete environments are deployed from scratch in hours using Terraform and Kustomize, compared to weeks of manual configuration previously required.

Qualitative Outcomes

  • Operational Simplicity Through Standardization: Consistent containerization and orchestration patterns eliminated configuration drift between services, reducing troubleshooting complexity and enabling knowledge sharing across engineering teams.

  • Enhanced Security Posture and Compliance: HashiCorp Vault integration centralized secret management with encryption, role-based access controls, and automated rotation, addressing compliance requirements for international humanitarian operations.

  • Accelerated Feature Delivery: GitOps automation with complete CI/CD integration enabled faster iteration on humanitarian program requirements, shortening feedback loops between field teams and engineering.

Key Learnings

  • Standardization before containerization accelerates migration velocity

    Investing time upfront to analyze service architectures and identify common patterns enabled the creation of reusable container images and deployment templates. This standardization approach proved more efficient than containerizing each service individually, as subsequent services leveraged established patterns and required minimal customization.

  • GitOps fundamentally improves deployment reliability and audit capability

    Treating Git repositories as the single source of truth for infrastructure and application configuration provided automatic deployment audit trails while enabling easy rollbacks through Git history. The declarative GitOps model with ArgoCD eliminated manual deployment steps that introduced human error, while providing clear visibility into what configuration was deployed when and by whom. The combination of GitOps with Infrastructure-as-Code creates self-documenting infrastructure that new team members can understand by reviewing Git history.

Next Steps

Following successful migration to Amazon EKS and establishment of GitOps workflows, the company plans to extend the platform’s capabilities, deepen automation, and expand operational resilience through three strategic initiatives.

  1. 1

    Multi-Region Deployment for Disaster

    Recovery and Geographic Redundancy Extend Infrastructure-as-Code capabilities to deploy complete Amazon EKS clusters across multiple AWS regions, providing disaster recovery capability and reducing latency for field operations in distant geographic locations.
  2. 2

    Advanced Observability and Proactive Incident Prevention

    Enhance monitoring stack with distributed tracing using AWS X-Ray and Jaeger to provide complete visibility into microservice interactions and identify performance bottlenecks before they impact users.

Conclusion

The successful transformation from a fragmented serverless infrastructure to a unified Amazon EKS platform marked a pivotal milestone in operational maturity and technology strategy. By partnering with Matoffo to implement cloud-native Kubernetes orchestration, GitOps automation, and Infrastructure-as-Code management, they successfully addressed critical operational inefficiencies while establishing a scalable foundation supporting their global humanitarian mission.

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