Ilios Digital

Convergent Technologies Solutions Private Limited

Project Title:  Deployment of a Visa Processing Application on AWS Cloud Infrastructure

Description

The customer intends to deploy and host a Visa Processing Application in the UAE region by leveraging AWS cloud infrastructure. The primary objective of this project is to provision a secure, scalable, and high-availability cloud infrastructure solution that guarantees optimal performance of the application, ensures full compliance with regional data residency requirements specific to the UAE, and maintains alignment with globally recognized cloud best practices for security, reliability, and operational efficiency.

Automated CI/CD Pipeline

Successfully implemented a GitLab-Jenkins-Argo CD-based CI/CD pipeline that automates the entire build, test, and deployment process, reducing manual effort and deployment errors

Secure and Reliable Container Management

Leveraged Docker for consistent containerization and Amazon ECR for secure image storage. Integrated AWS Inspector to ensure vulnerability-free deployments

Scalable Kubernetes Deployment

Deployed applications on Amazon EKS, enabling horizontal scaling, efficient orchestration, and high availability for microservices

GitOps-based Continuous Delivery

Implemented Argo CD for automated and declarative deployments, allowing traceable and version-controlled updates to production environments

Project Outcomes

Problem Statement

The key challenges included:
  • Implemented a Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipeline to streamline and automate the application deployment process, ensuring faster release cycles and reduced manual intervention.
  • High Availability: Implementing an infrastructure that ensures continuous availability and automated recovery from failures, minimizing service interruptions.
  • Integrated Prometheus and Grafana for real-time monitoring and observability, enabling proactive incident response, security tracking, and continuous health monitoring of the infrastructure and deployed microservices.
  • For security, configured Inspector to automatically scan container images stored in AWS ECR, ensuring vulnerabilities are detected before deployment to production.

Use Case & Architecture

The proposed solution for Convergent Technologies involves deploying a Visa Processing Application on a robust AWS cloud infrastructure within the UAE region. The architecture is built around Amazon EKS for microservices orchestration, with full CI/CD automation using GitLab, Jenkins, and Argo CD. Docker is used for containerization, and Amazon ECR for secure image storage. AWS Inspector ensures vulnerability scans before deployment. Observability is achieved via Prometheus and Grafana, while centralized logging is handled by the EFK stack. Persistent shared storage is supported by Amazon EFS.

  • CI/CD Automation:
    • GitLab triggers Jenkins to build Docker images and push to Amazon ECR.
    • Argo CD monitors GitLab for declarative deployment to EKS (GitOps model).
  • Container Orchestration (Amazon EKS):
    • Manages scalable, highly available Kubernetes clusters.
    • Runs containerized microservices with autoscaling support.
  • Security (Amazon Inspector):
    • Performs automated vulnerability scans on ECR container images before deployment.
  • Ingress & Traffic Routing (NGINX Ingress Controller):
    • Routes external traffic securely to Kubernetes services.
    • Handles SSL termination and load balancing.
  • Monitoring & Observability:
    • Prometheus collects time-series metrics with alerting via PromQL.
    • Grafana visualizes metrics through interactive dashboards.
  • Centralized Logging (EFK Stack):
    • Elasticsearch indexes logs for fast search.
    • Fluentd collects and forwards logs from containers.
    • Kibana provides visualization and analysis of log data.
  • Persistent Storage (Amazon EFS):
    • Shared, scalable file storage for stateful applications in EKS.

AWS Services for the Solution

  • Compute:
    • Amazon EKS for container orchestration of microservices with autoscaling support.
    • AWS Lambda for event-driven automation within the CI/CD pipeline.
  • Storage:
    • Amazon ECR for storing Docker container images securely.
    • Amazon EFS for shared persistent storage across the Kubernetes cluster.
  • Security:
    • AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to enforce least-privilege access control.
    • AWS Inspector to automatically scan container images for vulnerabilities before deployment.
    • AWS Secrets Manager for securely storing and managing sensitive credentials.
  • Deployment & DevOps:
    • GitLab and Jenkins for CI automation and image builds.
    • Argo CD for GitOps-based continuous deployment to EKS.
  • Monitoring & Logging:
    • Prometheus for collecting and alerting on performance metrics.
    • Grafana for dashboard visualization and monitoring insights.
    • EFK Stack (Elasticsearch, Fluentd, Kibana) for centralized log aggregation and analysis.
  • Networking & Traffic Management:
    • NGINX Ingress Controller to securely route external traffic to EKS services.

Conclusion

By leveraging AWS-native services and adhering to DevOps best practices, Convergent Technologies successfully deployed a secure, scalable, and highly available Visa Processing Application in the UAE region. The fully automated CI/CD pipeline, combined with containerized microservices on Amazon EKS, enabled rapid and reliable deployments. Integrated monitoring, logging, and security solutions ensured real-time visibility, operational resilience, and compliance with data residency requirements. This cloud-native architecture positions Convergent Technologies for future scalability, streamlined operations, and faster innovation cycles.