Cloud & DevOps Engineering
We move systems to the cloud and make deploying to them boring. Migration, infrastructure as code, container orchestration and pipelines that ship on a Friday afternoon without anyone holding their breath.
The work usually starts with two questions: why does a release take so long, and why is the bill that size. Both have answers, and both are fixable without a rewrite.
What We Deliver
The work this engagement actually covers — and what you own at the end of it.
Cloud Migration
Lift-and-shift when speed matters, re-architecture when the economics justify it. We assess honestly and tell you which one your workload actually warrants.
Infrastructure as Code
Terraform-defined environments that are reproducible, reviewable and identical from staging to production — no more configuration that exists only in one person’s memory.
CI/CD Automation
Pipelines with automated tests, security scanning and one-command rollback, so releases become routine instead of events that need a calendar invite.
Containers & Kubernetes
Docker packaging and right-sized orchestration — managed Kubernetes where it earns its complexity, plain container services where it does not.
Observability
Metrics, structured logs, tracing and alerts that page a human only when a human is genuinely needed.
Cost Optimisation
Right-sizing, autoscaling policies, storage lifecycle rules and reserved capacity planning, with the savings reported monthly against the baseline.
What you receive
- Terraform modules and environment definitions in your repository
- CI/CD pipelines with automated tests and rollback
- Architecture diagram and network topology documentation
- Monitoring dashboards, alert rules and on-call runbooks
- Disaster recovery plan with tested restore procedure
- Cost baseline and optimisation report
How the Work Runs
No stage is a surprise, and every one of them ends in something you can look at.
Readiness Assessment
A free migration readiness assessment covering your current architecture, dependencies, compliance constraints and cost baseline.
Target Architecture
A landing zone design with networking, identity, environment separation and guardrails agreed before anything moves.
Pilot Migration
One representative workload moved end to end. It proves the pattern and exposes the surprises while they are still cheap.
Phased Cutover
Workloads migrated in dependency order with rehearsed rollback at each step. Cutovers happen in your maintenance window.
Optimise & Hand Over
Autoscaling tuned, spend reviewed, runbooks written and your team trained to operate it without us.
What Good Looks Like
Cost reduction comes from right-sizing and lifecycle policies rather than from switching everything off — savings that survive the first month, because nothing that mattered was removed.
Technology We Use
Chosen for what your team can hire for and maintain, not for what is new this quarter.
- AWS
- Azure
- GCP
- Terraform
- Docker
- Kubernetes
- GitHub Actions
- GitLab CI
- Prometheus
- Grafana
- PostgreSQL
- Redis
Engagement Models
Three ways to work with us. Which one fits depends on how settled your scope is and how long you need the team.
Fixed-Scope Project
A defined outcome, an agreed timeline
We scope the work up front, agree the deliverables and the date, and carry the delivery risk. Best when you know what you need built and want a predictable commitment.
Best for
- A launch with a hard deadline
- A well-understood rebuild or migration
- First projects with a new partner
What's included
- Written scope, milestones and acceptance criteria
- A named project lead and weekly demos
- Fixed delivery date with change control
- 30 days of complimentary post-launch support
Dedicated Team
Our engineers, your roadmap
A ring-fenced team — engineers, designers and QA — working only on your product, in your rituals and your tools. You set the priorities sprint by sprint.
Best for
- Evolving product roadmaps
- Scaling an in-house team quickly
- Long-running platform work
What's included
- Named team members, not a rotating pool
- Your sprint cadence, standups and board
- Direct access to every engineer on the team
- Scale the team up or down at each sprint boundary
Ongoing Retainer
Someone who already knows your system
A monthly block of engineering time for maintenance, security patching, performance work and steady improvement — from the people who built it.
Best for
- Live products that need care, not a rebuild
- Security and dependency upkeep
- Incremental features after launch
What's included
- Essential, Growth and Enterprise tiers
- Monitoring, security patches and dependency updates
- Agreed response times, up to a 24/7 SLA
- Monthly report on what changed and what it cost
Migrations run as fixed-scope projects. Platform and reliability work that continues afterwards usually moves to a dedicated team or retainer.
From Our Journal
Serverless Edge Computing
Moving logic closer to the user: A deep dive into edge functions, global distribution, and achieving sub-10ms response times worldwide.
Sustainable Software Engineering
How writing efficient code and rethinking system architectures can significantly reduce the carbon footprint of your applications.
Cloud & DevOps Questions
The things prospective clients ask us before committing to this work.
How long does it take to migrate our infrastructure to the cloud?
Cloud migration timelines depend on your current architecture. A lift-and-shift migration of a standard monolithic application to AWS or Azure typically takes 4–8 weeks. A full re-architecture to a microservices-based cloud-native stack takes 3–6 months. Aquison Technologies provides a free migration readiness assessment to give you an accurate timeline.
Will our systems go down during the migration?
Planned downtime is normally zero. We migrate workloads in dependency order, run old and new side by side during cutover, and rehearse the rollback before each step. Where a database cutover genuinely requires a freeze, it is scheduled inside your maintenance window and measured in minutes.
Which cloud provider should we choose?
AWS has the broadest service catalogue and the deepest talent pool. Azure usually wins where you already run Microsoft licensing, Active Directory and Office 365. Google Cloud is strong for data and machine learning workloads. We recommend based on your existing stack, compliance requirements and the skills you can realistically hire for.
Do we need Kubernetes?
Often not. Kubernetes earns its operational complexity when you are running many services with genuinely independent scaling and release cycles. For a handful of services, managed container platforms like ECS, Cloud Run or App Service cost far less to operate. We will say so when that is the honest answer.
Can you reduce our current cloud bill?
Usually, yes. The recurring wins are over-provisioned instances, storage with no lifecycle policy, idle non-production environments left running overnight, and unused reserved capacity. We start with a cost assessment against your current baseline and report savings monthly so the reduction is verifiable rather than asserted.