Executive Summary
A UK specialist tour operator (operating since 1980) was running two customer-facing WordPress sites across two different hosting providers, with no environment separation, no infrastructure as code, and inconsistent deployment workflows. Their retained web development agency needed consistent access regardless of underlying provider. Logicata consolidated the lot onto AWS with a standardised LogiZone landing zone, four properly isolated environments, agency deployment workflows preserved, and zero downtime at go-live.
Customer Overview
Sector: Travel & Hospitality
Location: United Kingdom
The customer is the UK’s leading specialist tour operator for a specific destination region, operating since 1980. They run two WordPress websites: a primary commercial booking platform and a travel inspiration site. Together these serve thousands of travellers annually with tailor-made holidays and escorted group tours. A retained web development agency manages WordPress development and content deployment.
The Challenge
Hosting fragmentation had become a real operational drag:
- Fragmented infrastructure. Two sites across two different providers (shared hosting and a cloud VPS) with no unified management, monitoring, or security posture.
- No environment separation. Staging and production were not properly isolated at the infrastructure level.
- Inconsistent deployment workflows. One site used a deployment management tool, the other relied on manual sFTP uploads.
- No infrastructure as code. Environments were manually configured with nothing reproducible.
- Limited operational visibility. No centralised logging, alerting, or governance across the two hosting providers.
- Agency coordination challenges. The retained web agency needed consistent access and deployment patterns regardless of which provider hosted each site.
The customer wanted to consolidate onto a platform that could grow with the business and provide enterprise-grade security and operational visibility, without disrupting the agency that was building and shipping their content.
The Solution
Logicata designed and implemented a complete AWS environment build and migration.
Landing zone and account structure
- Deployed a standardised LogiZone landing zone providing multi-account governance, centralised logging, security baselines, and identity management via AWS Organizations and AWS IAM Identity Center.
- Vended dedicated AWS accounts for each site, with organisational unit placement following least-privilege principles.
- Established four fully isolated environments (staging plus production, for each site).
Infrastructure build
- Amazon EC2 instances configured with NGINX, integrated with the agency’s existing deployment tooling (Laravel Forge) so their SSH key management and deployment workflows continued unchanged.
- Amazon VPC with proper network segmentation for each environment.
- Amazon Route 53 for DNS management and failover.
- AWS Certificate Manager for automated SSL certificate provisioning and renewal.
- Amazon CloudWatch for centralised monitoring and alerting.
- AWS CloudTrail for audit logging across all accounts.
Migration execution
- Staged migration approach: simpler site first as a proof of concept, primary commercial site second once the pattern was validated.
- Coordinated with the retained web agency to ensure zero disruption to their development workflows.
- Zero-downtime go-live with scheduled DNS cutovers during low-traffic windows.
- Logicata absorbed release management coordination when the agency experienced personnel changes mid-project, so the migration timeline did not slip.
Results
- Two WordPress platforms migrated (four environments total)
- Zero downtime during production go-live
- Hosting providers consolidated from two to one (AWS)
- Proper staging and production isolation established at the account level
- Centralised logging, monitoring, and security baselines across the estate
- Zero disruption to agency development workflows through Laravel Forge integration
- Transitioned to an ongoing managed services contract post-migration
AWS Services Used
- Amazon EC2
- Amazon VPC
- AWS Organizations
- AWS IAM Identity Center
- AWS CloudTrail
- Amazon CloudWatch
- Amazon Route 53
- AWS Certificate Manager
- Amazon S3
About Logicata
Logicata is an AWS Advanced Partner holding the AWS Cloud Operations Management Competency, validated through an independent third-party audit. Logicata helps organisations build and operate secure, well-governed cloud platforms on AWS, enabling customers to reduce operational risk, meet assurance expectations, and scale with confidence.
