Project Overview

Sara is a multi-service digital marketplace that connects users with local businesses, enabling discovery, bookings, transactions, and real-time interactions through web and mobile applications. The platform ecosystem includes consumer-facing apps, a business management panel, and a unified backend powering all services.
As the platform expanded, the client required a production-grade infrastructure capable of handling real-time operations reliably, along with a streamlined deployment system to support faster releases and consistent delivery across environments.
The objective was to establish a scalable, secure, and highly available cloud foundation while enabling automation, observability, and environment control.

Performance at a Glance

99.9%

uptime with multi-zone, load-balanced AWS infrastructure

3×

faster release cycles through CI/CD automation

Multi-environment architecture supporting staging and production

Client Goals

Build a scalable and production-ready AWS infrastructure.
Enable automated and reliable deployments.
Support multiple services (backend, frontend, admin panel).
Ensure high availability across availability zones.
Improve system observability and error tracking.
Establish staging and production environments.
Standardise infrastructure for future scalability.

Key Pain Points

Fragmented and non-scalable cloud setup.

Manual deployments causing delays and inconsistencies.

No structured approach to multi-service orchestration.

Lack of centralised monitoring and error visibility.

No separation between staging and production environments.

Risk of configuration errors and insecure secret handling.

How We Helped

1. AWS Infrastructure Architecture:

Designed a multi-AZ architecture across availability zones for high availability.
Deployed services using Amazon ECS (Fargate) for serverless container orchestration.
Configured Application Load Balancer (ALB) for intelligent traffic distribution.

Result: Built a highly available, fault-tolerant infrastructure capable of handling real-time workloads.

2. Containerisation with Docker & Amazon ECR:

Containerised backend, frontend, and admin services using Docker.
Stored and managed container images securely in Amazon ECR.
Standardised deployment environments across staging and production.

Result: Ensured consistent deployments with simplified version control and rollback capability.

3. CI/CD Pipeline Implementation:

Set up automated workflows using GitHub Actions for build and deployment.
Integrated pipeline with Amazon ECR and ECS for seamless deployments.
Enabled approval-based production releases for controlled rollouts.

Result: Accelerated release cycles with reliable, automated, and repeatable deployments.

4. ECS Task & Service Management:

Configured ECS task definitions for each application service.
Managed deployments and scaling through ECS services.
Enabled independent service updates without system-wide disruption..

Result: Improved scalability and flexibility with efficient resource utilisation.

5. Secure Secrets Management:

Implemented AWS Secrets Manager for sensitive configuration storage.
Managed API keys, database credentials, and environment variables securely.
Eliminated hardcoded secrets from application codebases.

Result: Strengthened security with centralised and protected configuration management.

6. Monitoring & Observability:

Integrated Amazon CloudWatch for system logs and performance metrics.
Implemented Sentry for real-time error tracking and alerting.
Enabled proactive monitoring of application health and failures.

Result: Improved system visibility with faster issue detection and resolution.

7. Environment Setup (Staging & Production):

Established separate environments for staging and production workflows.
Enabled controlled deployments with environment-specific configurations.
Optimised staging usage to reduce unnecessary infrastructure costs.

Result: Enabled safer releases with reduced production risks and better testing control.

8. Database Architecture (Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL):

Designed a scalable and highly available database layer using Amazon Aurora PostgreSQL.
Configured automated backups, failover mechanisms, and performance optimisation settings.
Followed AWS best practices for reliability, durability, and performance.

Result: Delivered a resilient and high-performance database layer supporting critical application workloads.

9. Infrastructure Cost Optimisation:

Implemented cost optimisation strategies aligned with AWS best practices.
Scheduled automated shutdown of non-production (staging) resources during non-working periods.
Optimised resource utilisation across services to avoid unnecessary overhead.

Result: Improved infrastructure efficiency while maintaining performance and availability.

10. Security & Access Control (IAM Best Practices):

Enforced least-privilege access using finely scoped IAM roles and policies.
Restricted access to services, environments, and sensitive resources based on roles.
Aligned security configurations with AWS best practices for enterprise-grade protection.

Result: Strengthened overall security posture with controlled and auditable access management.