Cloud & infrastructure operations

Running the platform day to day: patching, capacity, resilience and cost.

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What is it?

Operating cloud infrastructure after go-live. Patching and currency, capacity management, backup and disaster recovery that has actually been tested, and the cost discipline that keeps a cloud bill from drifting upward unexamined.

For a technical reader

Operational maturity shows up in three measurable places: patch currency against a defined baseline, backup coverage with verified restores, and cost per unit of work. Each requires automation to sustain, because manual patching and manual cost review both degrade the moment attention moves elsewhere. Disaster recovery deserves particular scepticism: a plan that has never been executed is an assumption, and the gap between stated and actual recovery time is usually discovered at the worst moment.

Our services

Operational baselineDefined standards for patch currency, backup coverage, resilience and security, with reporting against them.
Automated operationsPatching, scaling and routine remediation automated so attention goes to exceptions.
Resilience assuranceBackup verification and rehearsed disaster recovery with recorded results.
FinOpsTagging, rightsizing, commitment planning and monthly review with named actions.

What’s covered

Patch and currency
OS, runtime and managed-service version currency tracked against a baseline
Capacity and scaling
Autoscaling policies and headroom review against real usage
Backup and DR
Coverage verified and recovery rehearsed on a schedule, with results recorded
Security baseline
CIS-style benchmarks, drift detection and remediation
FinOps
Rightsizing, commitment planning and monthly spend review with named actions

Business problems we solve

Cloud spend keeps risingUsually untagged resources and no rightsizing cadence. Both are fixable with discipline rather than tooling.
Patching falls behindManual patching does not survive competing priorities. Automation and a measured baseline do.
DR has never been testedAn untested plan is a document. Rehearsal is the only thing that tells you the real recovery time.
Security drift goes unnoticedConfiguration moves away from the baseline over time. Drift detection catches it.

Our delivery approach

  1. 01
    Define the baselineWhat good looks like for patch currency, backup coverage and resilience, agreed and measured against.
  2. 02
    Automate routine workPatching, scaling and routine remediation automated so attention goes to the exceptions.
  3. 03
    Test recovery for realA DR plan that has never been executed is a document. Recovery is rehearsed on a schedule with results recorded.
  4. 04
    Review cost monthlySpend reviewed against usage with specific recommendations, not a dashboard nobody opens.

Solutions & project types

Examples of the work we take on in this area. These describe project shapes, not named client engagements.

Managed cloud operationsDay-to-day running of an AWS, Azure or OCI estate against an agreed baseline.
DR implementation and testingConfiguring and rehearsing recovery to a defined objective.
Cost optimisation programmeTagging, rightsizing and commitment strategy with tracked savings.
Security baseline remediationBringing an estate to a benchmark standard and keeping it there.

Technologies & platforms

Platforms

  • AWS
  • Microsoft Azure
  • Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
  • Google Cloud

Automation

  • Terraform
  • Ansible
  • AWS Systems Manager
  • OCI Resource Manager

Monitoring

  • Datadog
  • Prometheus
  • Grafana
  • CloudWatch
  • OCI Monitoring

Security

  • CIS Benchmarks
  • AWS Security Hub
  • Microsoft Defender for Cloud
  • OCI Cloud Guard

Cost

  • AWS Cost Explorer
  • Azure Cost Management
  • OCI Budgets
  • FinOps practice
Learn this field

Where to start with cloud & infrastructure operations.

Secondary to the work itself, but genuinely useful if you are building the skill. Every link goes to official documentation or an official channel.

Beginner

  • Cloud shared responsibility model
  • Compute, storage and network primitives
  • Tagging and why it matters for cost
  • Read a cloud bill and attribute a line item

Intermediate

  • Infrastructure as code for operational change
  • Backup strategy and restore testing
  • Autoscaling policies and capacity headroom
  • Security benchmarks and drift detection

Advanced

  • Multi-region DR architecture and data replication
  • FinOps: commitment planning and unit economics
  • Automated remediation and self-healing
  • Operating a regulated estate with audit evidence

Certifications

  • AWS Certified SysOps Administrator – Associate
  • Microsoft Certified: Azure Administrator Associate
  • Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Architect Associate
  • FinOps Certified Practitioner

Practice projects

  • Tag every resource and produce a cost report by team
  • Automate patching and measure currency against a baseline
  • Perform a real restore from backup and time it
  • Run a DR failover in a test environment and record the gaps
  • Rightsize three workloads and quantify the saving
FAQs

Questions we get asked.

Do you replace our internal team?

Rarely, and we would not propose it as the default. More often we take routine operations so internal people work on things specific to your business.

Which clouds do you operate?

AWS, Azure, OCI and Google Cloud. Oracle estates on OCI are a particular strength given the application-side work.

How often should DR be tested?

At least annually, and after any significant architecture change. More often if the recovery objective is aggressive.

Can you reduce our cloud bill?

Usually there is something, most often in untagged idle resources and oversized instances. We will not quote a percentage before seeing the estate.

Managed Services

Related services.

Application supportOngoing support for the applications we build and the ones you already run.Monitoring & SREKnowing a service is degraded before your users tell you, and having a path to fix it.Continuous improvementA funded, prioritised backlog after go-live, so the system keeps getting better.Specialized talentSenior engineers, Oracle specialists and data people embedded in your team.
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