GFT leverages AWS ecosystem to deliver dramatic cost efficiencies for major private equity firm

A US-based private equity firm (>$1T AUM) approached GFT in 2024 with a problem. The firm’s software development team was fighting a losing battle with their cloud-based Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery architecture. While the aim of CI/CD is to automate deployment of software in a way that minimizes errors and increases efficiency, the firm’s architecture was doing the opposite. Faced with spiraling overheads and resource-intensive architecture, the firm enlisted GFT to implement an AWS-enabled CI/CD architecture that would improve security, optimize performance and reduce costs.

SOLUTION
An innovative solution was developed to meet client objectives. Highlights:

1. Stakeholder management: To ensure the client’s Architecture Committee approved the solution without issue, the team deployed unique concepts from Japanese culture, including Nemawashi (consensus-building technique where informal conversations are held with key stakeholders before formal meetings to align expectations), and the Hanko system (getting stamps of approval from critical teams before official meetings).

2. Technical delivery: With no ‘off-the-shelf’ solution available, it was critical GFT tailored the solution to the client’s specific needs:

-Maintenance: 180 Jenkins servers were replaced with EKS (Elastic Kubernetes Service), an AWS system that ensures high availability and reduces manual interventions.

-Cost/resource efficiency: AWS Spot Instances (c.90% cheaper vs. on-demand instances) were introduced to handle non-critical tasks, allowing the architecture to task critical projects to on-demand nodes.

-Availability: Previously limited to one region (no redundancy), the new system uses multi-region clusters, ensuring availability at peak workloads.

-Scalability: With no dynamic scaling, the team used to over-provision resources. Now, AWS Karpenter auto-scales based on workloads.

-Security: Previously, security was convoluted, especially with custom networking between AWS accounts. Now, IRSA (IAM Roles for Service Accounts) provides secure, role-based access.

-Billing: Usage-based billing now ensures the client only pays for resources used.

IMPACT
-Savings: 87.6% reduction in costs, equating to $420,000/year savings.
-Economy: 90% reduction in costly on-demand EC2 servers.
-Capability: Added multi-region deployment and disaster-recovery for zero additional spend.
-Speed: Delivered in just six months.