AWS

CI/CD Modernization for Existing AWS Workloads

Ephemeral, On-Demand Runners on Amazon EKS or Amazon ECS

Accelerate software delivery while improving reliability and security. We modernize your CI/CD with ephemeral, autoscaled build runners on Amazon EKS or Amazon ECS, purpose-built for AWS workloads. Say goodbye to long queues, “snowflake” build hosts, and noisy-neighbor issues—spin up clean runners on demand, run fast, and shut them down when finished.

Who this is for

AWS
Teams already running in AWS that want faster, safer deployments
AWS
Engineering orgs adopting GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Bitbucket Pipelines, or Jenkins at scale
AWS
SMBs and growth companies seeking cost-efficient pipelines without managing fleets of static build servers

What you get

Outcomes

  • Faster releases: parallelize builds and tests; reduce lead time from weeks/days to hours/minutes
  • Higher reliability: every job runs on a fresh, immutable runner; fewer “works on my machine” failures
  • Lower cost: pay only for runner minutes; leverage EC2 Spot, Fargate on-demand, and right-sized instance families
  • Security by design: short-lived compute, least-privilege IAM, network isolation, and built-in auditability

Core capabilities

  • On-demand runners on EKS or ECS: autoscaling pools triggered by CI jobs; zero-queue burst scale
  • Container-native builds: Docker-in-Docker or rootless build strategies; language/toolchain layers cached efficiently
  • Multi-runtime delivery targets: EC2, ECS, EKS, Lambda—blue/green, canary, or progressive delivery
  • Observability: per-job logs/metrics/traces with CloudWatch/X-Ray; cost/usage dashboards for FinOps
  • Policy guardrails: OIDC-based trust with your git provider, IAM Roles for Service Accounts (IRSA), image-scanning, SBOMs

How it works

delivery model
Discovery & Assessment (1–2 weeks)
  • Map current pipelines, runners, repos, secrets, test strategy, and AWS accounts
  • Baseline lead time, deployment frequency, change fail rate, and MTTR
Target Design (1–2 weeks)
  • Choose EKS (Kubernetes control, Karpenter/Cluster Autoscaler) or ECS (simpler ops, EC2/Fargate)
  • Define runner lifecycles, autoscaling policies, security boundaries, and networking
  • Select deployment strategies (blue/green/canary), environments, and promotion rules
Build & Automate (2-4 weeks)
  • Implement ephemeral runner controllers (GitHub/GitLab/Jenkins), autoscaling, and images
  • Stand up artifact storage, container registry, test orchestration, and caching layers
  • IaC everything (Terraform/CloudFormation); add policy checks and SAST/DAST as needed
Handover & Enablement (1 week)
  • Runbooks, diagrams, and knowledge transfer
  • Optionally, shared-ops support and continuous improvements

Complete Solution Overview/ Complete Platform Solution

Reference architectures. Option A — EKS-based Ephemeral Runners

  • Trigger: CI platform webhooks → runner controller on EKS
  • Scale: Karpenter/Cluster Autoscaler provisions worker nodes on demand (incl. Spot)
  • Security: OIDC → IRSA for scoped AWS access; private ECR, VPC-isolated builds
  • Use when: you want Kubernetes control, custom sidecars, complex job graphs, or very high scale

Reference architectures. Option B — ECS-based Ephemeral Runners

  • Trigger: CI platform → ECS tasks launched per job (EC2 or Fargate)
  • Scale: ECS service autoscaling; Fargate for zero-ops, EC2 for cost tuning
  • Security: task-role IAM, private subnets/NAT, image scanning
  • Use when: you prefer simpler ops with excellent elasticity and quick time-to-value
  • Both options support: GitHub Actions self-hosted runners, GitLab Runners, Jenkins agents, and Bitbucket build agents.

Security & governance (built-in)

  • Short-lived compute: runners exist only for the duration of a job; no cross-job residue
  • Least privilege: OIDC trust to AWS; fine-grained IAM (no long-lived keys)
  • Network controls: private subnets, Security Groups, VPC endpoints; optional egress filtering
  • Software supply chain: signed images, image scanning, SBOMs, and policy checks in the pipeline
  • Auditability: CloudTrail/CloudWatch everywhere; per-job evidence and tamper-resistant logs

Tooling we integrate

  • AWS: EKS, ECS, Fargate, EC2/Spot, ECR, CloudWatch, X-Ray, KMS, Parameter Store/Secrets Manager, IAM (IRSA), ALB/NLB
  • CI/CD: GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Jenkins, Bitbucket
  • Testing & quality: unit/e2e, API tests, IaC tests, SCA/SAST/DAST, policy-as-code (Open Policy Agent)
  • IaC: Terraform or CloudFormation (your preference)

Engagement deliverables

  • Architecture & runbooks: diagrams, sizing guides, failure modes, and recovery steps
  • Infrastructure as Code: reproducible EKS/ECS stacks, runner images, autoscaling policies
  • Security SOPs: OIDC/IRSA patterns, secrets handling, least-privilege IAM, image-hardening guide
  • Observability & FinOps pack: logs/metrics/traces dashboards, cost reports, and usage budgets
  • Enablement: hands-on workshops for developers, QA, and platform/DevOps teams

Success metrics we target

  • Lead time for changes ↓ 50–80%
  • Deployment frequency ↑ 2–5×
  • Build queue time ↓ to near-zero via burst scaling
  • Change failure rate ↓ via tests & gated promotions
  • Cost/100 builds ↓ through ephemeral runners and right-sizing

FAQs

EKS or ECS—what should I choose?
If you already operate Kubernetes or need highly customized job topologies, choose EKS. If you want the quickest operational path with minimal control-plane burden, choose ECS (often with Fargate).

Can we keep our current CI tool?
Yes. We bring ephemeral runners to GitHub/GitLab/Jenkins/Bitbucket and wire them to your AWS environments.

How do you handle secrets?
OIDC federation removes static keys; job-time access uses IAM roles and Secrets Manager/Parameter Store.

Cloud Native Infrastructure for Startups

Ready to modernize your pipelines?

Let’s design and implement on-demand EKS/ECS runners tailored to your workloads, compliance needs, and budget—so you can ship faster, safer, and cheaper.

Request a consultation