Empowering a Multinational Consultancy with Efficient Cloud Management through Pulumi, Doppler, and Zero Trust

Client Background

Our client, a multinational consultancy, operates across multiple regions with a workforce of over 1,000 employees. Their client portfolio includes high-profile organizations, necessitating a reliable and scalable cloud infrastructure to support the delivery of critical services and applications. As they continued to grow, the client recognized the need for a more structured, secure, and efficient approach to managing their cloud resources.

Challenges

In their rapid growth, the client encountered several common challenges that many expanding organizations face in cloud management:

Scaling Cloud Provisioning and Secure Secrets Management: The client was provisioning cloud resources across Google Cloud Platform (GCP) without a unified system for documentation and management. This often led to fragmented resource tracking. Additionally, environment secrets (such as API keys and credentials) were shared informally, posing a potential security risk.
Manual, Time-Consuming Deployments: Without a dedicated Infrastructure as Code (IaC) framework or a specialist, the team relied on manual cloud deployments. As they scaled, this process became increasingly time-consuming, resulting in longer lead times for setting up new environments and delays in delivering key projects.
Cloud Cost Optimization: As their infrastructure grew, so did their cloud costs. Unused or redundant resources were not consistently tracked, and cleaning up unnecessary deployments was essential for optimizing their operational expenditure.

Objectives and Goals

The client had clear objectives in mind:

Infrastructure Specialization and Efficiency: They sought a specialized, streamlined solution for cloud infrastructure management that could accelerate deployments and optimize resource management.
Fast and Reliable Resource Provisioning: Speed was a key factor, and they needed a solution that would automate provisioning while enabling their teams to focus on delivering services.
Cost Optimization and Cleanup: By cleaning up legacy deployments and unused resources, the client aimed to reduce ongoing cloud costs.
Secure Secrets Management: They needed a scalable and secure approach for managing environment secrets and eliminating informal sharing practices to safeguard sensitive data.

Project Scope and Timeline

The project required the analysis and migration of over a dozen Python-based applications, previously hosted on GCP using a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solution that wasn’t containerized. With the client’s growth and need for improved efficiency, we completed the project within an accelerated two-month timeline.

Approach and Strategy

1. Transitioning to Infrastructure as Code with Pulumi

We introduced Pulumi to standardize the client’s cloud infrastructure management:

Write Infrastructure as Code in Familiar Languages: Pulumi's support for languages such as TypeScript and Python made it an excellent fit for the client’s existing development teams.
Cross-Cloud Flexibility: Pulumi’s flexibility allowed us to transition from GCP to Azure seamlessly, optimizing costs and providing greater control over resource management.
Easy Migration: Although the client had no prior IaC experience, we introduced Pulumi to standardize their deployments. We conducted a thorough analysis, removing outdated resources and ensuring a clean migration to Azure for ongoing infrastructure management.

2. Pulumi Cloud for Streamlined Provisioning and Management

Pulumi Cloud provided automation capabilities, drastically improving the client’s operational efficiency:

Automated Resource Provisioning: Pulumi Cloud enabled us to automate infrastructure provisioning, reducing deployment times from hours to minutes and accelerating their delivery timelines.
CI/CD Integration: We integrated Pulumi Cloud with their existing CI/CD pipelines, allowing for seamless updates and infrastructure changes. This let the development team focus on innovation rather than infrastructure management.

3. Cloudflare Zero Trust for Enhanced Security

Security was a top priority, and we implemented Cloudflare Zero Trust to secure the client’s data and resources:

Access Control with Microsoft Entra ID: Integrating Cloudflare Zero Trust with Microsoft Entra ID ensured that only authorized personnel had access to critical systems and data.
Rapid Security Deployment: Using Cloudflare’s Pulumi package in TypeScript, we reduced the time to secure systems to under five minutes, enhancing both agility and security across environments.

4. Secure Secrets Management with Doppler

To address the need for better secrets management, we introduced Doppler as a centralized solution:

Custom Doppler Integration: We developed a custom Doppler provider package in TypeScript, which allowed us to leverage Doppler’s API for dynamically fetching secrets and injecting them directly into Pulumi’s IaC framework. This ensured secure and consistent secrets management across deployments.
Automated Secret Injection: With Doppler, the client now securely injects secrets into their deployment pipelines, reducing the risk of human error or mishandling and protecting sensitive information.

Implementation Details

Phase 1: Infrastructure Audit and Cleanup: We conducted a comprehensive audit to identify redundant GCP resources, leading to optimized cloud usage and reduced operational costs.
Phase 2: Database and Backend Migration: Key backend services and databases were migrated to Azure, ensuring efficiency and minimal downtime. These systems were secured using Cloudflare Zero Trust to maintain the highest security standards.
Phase 3: Frontend Integration: We incorporated their Vercel-hosted frontend systems into Pulumi’s codebase, allowing unified management across environments.
Phase 4: Doppler Integration: Doppler was configured to securely manage environment secrets, with automated injection of secrets ensuring reliable and secure deployments.

Results and Impact

85% Reduction in Cloud Provisioning Time: By automating resource provisioning, deployment times were reduced from hours to under 30 minutes, enabling the client to quickly meet customer demands.
40% Decrease in Cloud Costs: The optimization of resources, including the removal of unused instances, resulted in a 40% reduction in monthly cloud costs.
Streamlined Infrastructure Management: Pulumi Cloud's automation has enabled the client’s newly hired infrastructure specialist to manage the environment with minimal manual intervention.
Enhanced Security: With Cloudflare Zero Trust and Doppler, the client’s critical systems and environment secrets are now fully secured. Integration with Microsoft Entra ID has simplified access management and reduced security risks.
Secure Management: By implementing Doppler, the client has eliminated the risks associated with insecure secret sharing, securing their environment variables and ensuring compliance with security standards.
Improved Deployment Reliability: Through Pulumi and Doppler, deployments are now consistent, automated, and error-free, improving the overall reliability of their applications.

Conclusion

This project transformed the client’s approach to cloud infrastructure management, creating a scalable and efficient system using Pulumi, Doppler, and Cloudflare Zero Trust. The result was a faster, more secure, and cost-effective infrastructure, setting the client up for continued growth and success.

By introducing secure secrets management with Doppler, the client is now fully protected against potential security risks related to environment variables, ensuring the integrity of their deployments. This engagement highlights how modern IaC and security tools can optimize cloud operations while building a foundation for future innovation.