Case study · Software product teams
Releases that are boring, in the best way
Many product teams still deploy by hand, from one person's laptop, on a Friday evening. This is how we set up automated pipelines and infrastructure as code so every change is built, tested and deployed the same way, environments can be recreated on demand and rollbacks take minutes.
Project overview
Automated delivery and repeatable infrastructure.
- Industry
- Software products
- Client
- Confidential
- Solution
- CI/CD and IaC
- Pipelines
- GitHub Actions / Azure DevOps
- Timeline
- 8–14 weeks
- Team
- 2–3 people
- IaC
- Terraform or Bicep
- Environments
- Dev, test, staging, production
- Cloud
- Azure or AWS
Expected business outcomes
What the client set out to achieve
Measured with the delivery metrics most teams already recognise.
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Daily or better
Deployment frequency
Small changes deployed routinely instead of big risky releases.
Reached once pipelines and tests were trusted
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Minutes
To roll back
Previous versions redeployed from the pipeline.
Where deployments are versioned
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Minutes
To create an environment
Infrastructure defined as code and recreated on demand.
For environments covered by IaC
Business challenges
Where the client started
Deployments depend on people and memory.
Deployments
Manual steps written in a wiki, if at all.
Environments
Configured by hand and drifting apart over time.
Testing
Tests exist but aren't run on every change.
Secrets
Passwords in config files and chat messages.
Risk
One person knows how production is really set up.
Proposed solution
What the setup covers
Pipelines, infrastructure and the guardrails around them.
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CI pipelines
Every change built, tested and scanned automatically.
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CD pipelines
Deployments through environments with approvals for production.
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Infrastructure as code
Environments defined in Terraform or Bicep and reviewed like code.
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Secrets management
Secrets moved into a vault and injected at deploy time.
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Security checks
Dependency and container scanning in the pipeline.
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Monitoring
Deployment markers, logs and alerts to catch problems quickly.
Project requirements
What the client asked us for
The request was automated deployments. The foundation is infrastructure as code, so environments are identical and can be rebuilt, not hand-crafted.
We build with the team, not for it, so they own and extend the pipelines afterwards.
What the project had to deliver
- 01Every change tested automatically
- 02Identical, reproducible environments
- 03Secrets out of code
- 04Fast, safe rollbacks
Key challenges & considerations
What made it harder, and what we did
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Existing environments nobody fully understands
What we did
The existing environments were captured in code before anything was changed.
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Flaky or slow tests
What we did
Flaky tests were fixed or quarantined before the pipeline depended on them.
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Database migrations in deployments
What we did
Database migrations were automated and made reversible.
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Compliance approval steps
What we did
Approval steps were built into the pipeline with an audit trail.
What we watched for
- Capture existing environments in code first
- Fix flaky tests before trusting pipelines
- Keep secrets out of repositories
- Let the team own the pipelines
Development process
Codify, automate, hand over
Existing environments are captured in code before anything is rebuilt.
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Assessment
Current build, deploy and hosting reviewed.
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Infrastructure as code
Environments captured in code and recreated in test.
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CI
Build, test and scan pipelines for every repository.
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CD
Automated deployments with approvals and rollbacks.
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Handover
Documentation and pairing so the team owns it.
Technology stack
Modern delivery tooling
Standard tools the team can hire for and maintain.
Pipelines
- GitHub Actions
- Azure DevOps Pipelines
Infrastructure
- Terraform
- Bicep
- Containers
Security
- Key Vault / Secrets Manager
- Dependency scanning
Observability
- Application Insights / CloudWatch
- Alerts
Quality assurance & deployment
Rehearsed before production, monitored after
Infrastructure changes were proved before they touched production. Every change was made as code, tested in a copy of the environment and rehearsed with a rollback.
- Infrastructure defined as code and reviewed like application code
- Changes tested in a non-production copy first
- Load tests before any resize or cut-over
- Backup restores and failover rehearsed, not assumed
- Security baselines checked automatically
Deployment
- 01CDAutomated deployments with approvals and rollbacks.
- 02HandoverDocumentation and pairing so the team owns it.
- 03Rehearsed cut-oversEach change window was planned, rehearsed and reversible.
- 04Monitoring and handoverDashboards, alerts and runbooks handed to the client's team, and six months of free bug fixing.
Final deliverables
Shipping without holding your breath
Every change goes through the same automated path to production, environments are rebuilt from code and a bad release is rolled back in minutes.
Deployment knowledge lives in the repository, not in one person's head.
- Automated CI/CD
- Infrastructure as code
- Managed secrets
- Fast rollbacks
Handed over to the client
- 01Infrastructure as codeIn the client's repository
- 02PipelinesBuild, test and deploy
- 03Monitoring and alertsDashboards and on-call routing
- 04RunbooksFor releases, recovery and failover
- 05Six-month warrantyFree bug fixing after delivery
Success metrics
How success is measured
| Measure | Outcome | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|
| Deployment frequency | Daily or better | Reached once pipelines and tests were trusted |
| To roll back | Minutes | Where deployments are versioned |
| To create an environment | Minutes | For environments covered by IaC |
Verified reviews
What clients say about our custom software work
Verified reviews from our clients on the same kind of work, published on Clutch.
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Custom Software Development
Web-Based Coupon App Development
The work produced by the team was of exceptional quality.
Jon Thies
CTO, Model Rocket Feb 2022 – Mar 2023
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Custom Software Development
Mobile & Web Platform Development & Design
Silver Scintilla was responsive, respectful, and enjoyable to work with, quickly addressing any questions or requests.
DeShawn Brown
CEO & Founder, Lithios Jun 2021 – Nov 2022
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Custom Software Development
Web-Based HRM System Development
Silver Scintilla provided the best solution with scalable functionality, personalized features, and robust security.
Suheb Khan
Director, Collaborative Insight Technologies Jul 2020 – Jun 2022
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