Executive Summary
A regulated UK online healthcare platform was running on unmanaged EC2 instances with no auto-scaling, no CI/CD, self-managed databases, and no clean environment separation. A growing patient base was making the operational fragility increasingly untenable. Logicata rebuilt the infrastructure in three phases: a Golden-AMI-driven build with Auto Scaling Groups and managed data services, structured testing including a zero-downtime production database migration, and per-environment CI/CD pipelines with manual approval gates for prod.
Customer Overview
Sector: Healthcare
Location: United Kingdom
The customer operates a regulated online healthcare consultation and treatment platform serving thousands of UK patients. The platform falls under GPhC (General Pharmaceutical Council) regulatory requirements and handles sensitive patient data: medical consultations, treatment records, prescription information. The patient base was growing, and the original infrastructure was not designed for the operational rigor that growth demands.
The Challenge
The infrastructure was working, but only just. Several distinct problems were converging:
- No auto-scaling. Demand peaks were met with manual intervention or degraded service.
- Manual deployments. Multi-step releases prone to human error, with no consistent path from commit to production.
- No CI/CD. Every release was a fresh source of risk.
- Self-managed databases and caching. Engineering time spent on patching and failover that managed services could absorb.
- No proper environment separation. Development, staging, and production were not cleanly isolated.
- A growing patient base. The platform needed to scale reliably, and the existing setup did not.
For a regulated healthcare platform, operational fragility is not just a technical concern. It is a compliance and patient-safety concern.
The Solution
Logicata delivered a three-phase engagement.
Phase 1: Build
Infrastructure was rebuilt around immutable Golden AMIs:
- AMIs built via Packer/Ansible, triggered by AWS CodeBuild and AWS CodePipeline on demand
- Web instances running in Auto Scaling Groups with Amazon EFS mounts for shared storage
- Data tier on Amazon Aurora MySQL, Amazon ElastiCache for Redis, and Amazon OpenSearch Service, all fully managed
- Monitoring delivered via Datadog, with agents baked into the AMI build
Phase 2: Testing
- High-level design walkthrough so the customer’s team understood every architecture decision before cutover
- CI/CD demonstration covering build, deploy, and rollback paths
- UAT and regression test support
- Load testing against the new platform
- Production database migration executed using AWS Database Migration Service for zero-downtime cutover
Phase 3: Pipeline optimisation
The original single-pipeline approach was creating developer friction. The pipelines were rebuilt as:
- Separate build-and-promote pipelines per environment
- Triggered by branch merges
- Manual approval gates on the promotion to production
The result: faster, safer deploys without the all-or-nothing pressure of a single pipeline.
Results
- Fully managed data tier. Aurora MySQL, ElastiCache Redis, and OpenSearch eliminate self-managed database overhead.
- Immutable infrastructure. Instances rebuilt from Golden AMI on every deployment. No configuration drift.
- Automated CI/CD. Deployments reduced from manual multi-step process to a single branch merge.
- Horizontal scaling. Auto Scaling Groups handle demand peaks with zero manual intervention.
- Zero-downtime migration. Production cutover achieved using AWS DMS.
- Per-environment pipelines with manual approval gates improved both developer productivity and deployment safety.
AWS Services Used
- AWS CodePipeline
- AWS CodeBuild
- AWS CodeDeploy
- Amazon EC2 with Auto Scaling
- Amazon RDS (Aurora MySQL)
- Amazon ElastiCache for Redis
- Amazon OpenSearch Service
- Amazon EFS
- Amazon CloudWatch Logs
- AWS Database Migration Service
- Amazon ECR
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.
