Use case
Accelerating AWS Deployments with Terraform
About the Customer
CasicoreX is a game development and distribution company that creates a large number of cross-platform games for worldwide consumption. The company strives to provide friendly, reliable, and engaging experiences for its users. CasicoreX aims to be a one-stop shop for online casino game providers.
They offer a broad selection of over 120 HTML5 slots, table games, and even lottery options. Their games are known for being user-friendly and secure, with engaging features like free spins, bonus rounds, and unique mechanics. Their focus on cross-platform compatibility ensures players can enjoy these games seamlessly on both mobile and desktop devices, even in areas with low internet connectivity.
Customer Challenge
The customer’s infrastructure, hosted entirely on AWS, was composed of multiple environments tailored for various customers. Each environment contained nearly identical resources, replicated for different clients.
The process of creating new environments or separating existing ones was labor-intensive and time-consuming, requiring approximately two weeks to manually set up the infrastructure and an additional three weeks to test the applications hosted on the new infrastructure.
This inefficient approach led to a total deployment time of five weeks, significantly delaying the rollout of new environments and updates. CasicoreX looked for a modernized solution to reduce the infrastructure creation time and accelerate their delivery processes.
Solution
To address the inefficiencies in the manual setup process, IAMOPS proposed to modernize CasicoreX infrastructure setup by leveraging Terraform as Infrastructure as Code (IaC).
Solution Overview:
The implementation of Terraform for AWS services provided a streamlined and automated approach to infrastructure management for CasicoreX. By leveraging Terraform, the deployment of AWS resources became more consistent, efficient, faster, and error-free. Here’s how IAMOPS utilized Terraform to achieve this transformation:
- Automated Infrastructure Provisioning: Terraform enabled the automated setup of AWS services, such as EC2 instances, ECS clusters, and other essential components. This automation significantly reduced the time required to provision new environments and ensured that all deployments followed a standardized, repeatable process.
- Modular and Scalable Infrastructure Design: The infrastructure was organized into modular Terraform configurations, with each module dedicated to a specific AWS service or resource. This modular approach not only made the code more reusable for all future environments and easier to manage but also allowed for seamless scaling and adjustments as needed.
- Centralized Configuration Management: Terraform variables were centralized, allowing for easy customization and configuration of different environments. This practice simplified the management of environment-specific settings and reduced the risk of errors during deployment.
To address the inefficiencies in the manual setup process, IAMOPS proposed to modernize PulseGuard’s infrastructure setup by leveraging Terraform as Infrastructure as Code (IaC).
The implementation was carried out in the following detailed steps:
1. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) Implementation:
- Terraform Modules: The infrastructure was modularized, with each module representing a specific AWS service. This modular approach facilitated the reusability and manageability of the infrastructure code.
- State Management: Terraform state files were managed in AWS S3 buckets, with separate state files for each environment. This separation ensured isolated management of environmentspecific configurations and resources.
- Variable Management: A single variable file was created for each environment. By modifying the variable values, IAMOPS quickly configured the infrastructure for different environments without altering the core Terraform code.
2. Automation Process:
The automated Terraform scripts encompassed the entire infrastructure setup, from network resources to production servers with auto-scaling capabilities. The automation reduced the infrastructure preparation time from two weeks to two days.
3. Testing and Deployment:
After the infrastructure was provisioned, the application deployment and testing phases were streamlined. The total time for deploying applications, fixing issues, and completing testing was reduced to two weeks, including the infrastructure setup time.
Terraform Architecture Diagram
Results and Benefits
Qualitative Outcomes:
- Improved Efficiency: The automated process significantly reduced the time required to set up new environments, enhancing operational efficiency.
- Enhanced Consistency: By using Terraform, the infrastructure setup became more consistent and less prone to human error.
- Better Resource Management: Modular and reusable code improved the manageability and scalability of the infrastructure.
Quantitative Outcomes:
- Time Reduction: Infrastructure setup time decreased from 2 weeks to 2 days.
- Deployment and Testing Time: The overall time for infrastructure preparation and application testing reduced from 5 weeks to 2 weeks.
- Resource Utilization: By leveraging auto-scaling, resource utilization became more efficient and cost-effective.
Key learnings from the project were:
- Modularization Enhances Maintainability: Implementing Terraform with a modular approach made the infrastructure code more reusable and manageable, demonstrating the importance of breaking down infrastructure into modular components for flexibility and scalability.
- Effective State Management is Essential: Managing Terraform state files in isolated S3 buckets for each environment ensured consistency and prevented cross-environment interference, underscoring the importance of securely managing and organizing state files as a best
practice. - Centralized Variable Management Simplifies Configuration: Utilizing a single variable file for each environment allowed for quick and consistent configuration changes, highlighting the best practice of centralized variable management to maintain clarity and reduce errors across multiple environments.
About IAMOPS
IAMOPS is a full DevOps suite company that supports technology companies to achieve intense production readiness.
Our mission is to ensure that our clients’ infrastructure and CI/CD pipelines are scalable, mitigate failure points, optimize performance, ensure uptime, and minimize costs.
Our DevOps suite includes DevOps Core, NOC 24/7, FinOps, QA Automation, and DevSecOps to accelerate overall exponential growth.
As an AWS Advanced Tier Partner and Reseller, we focus on two key pillars: Professionalism by adhering to best practices and utilizing advanced technologies, and Customer Experience with responsiveness, availability, clear project management, and transparency to provide an exceptional experience for our clients.
