From on-premises infrastructure to a future-proof Kubernetes platform on AWS

A platform built for growth and innovation

As a global leader in AI-driven HR and recruitment technology, Textkernel needed more than just a stable IT environment. They needed a launchpad for innovation. With ambitious growth targets and a rapidly expanding client base, the company sought an infrastructure that would support:

Fast and reliable global deployments
Scalable across multiple regions
Modern developer workflows, such as containerization, GitOps, and CI/CD

They weren’t just looking to “move to the cloud.” They wanted a future-ready platform that would give them strategic flexibility and unlock real business value.

Legacy Infrastructure as a Bottleneck

Prior to the migration, Textkernel ran its applications on an on-premises virtualized platform based on Proxmox, automated with Ansible. Although functional, this environment had reached its limits.

The main challenges:

Slow provisioning: Deploying new environments still required manual steps.
Limited scalability: Infrastructure expansion was time-consuming and inconsistent.
High operational overhead: Teams were focused on maintaining infrastructure instead of product development.
Technical debt: Automation and scripts had grown organically, presenting a clear opportunity to modernize using Kubernetes.

After experimenting with containers, Textkernel recognized the value of Amazon EKS as a flexible, scalable, and highly available platform with great agility. However, a complete migration in the short term seemed unfeasible without a well-thought-out approach.

Guus Meijer, COO and managing director at Textkernel

"Textkernel has taken a strategic step toward a future-proof IT infrastructure in collaboration with SUE, allowing us to focus entirely on innovation rather than infrastructure management. SUE's in-depth expertise was decisive."

The impact

Cloud native, automated, and ready for the future

As a long-term IT partner of Textkernel , SUE took on the challenge of designing and delivering a fully automated Kubernetes platform using Amazon EKS. The result was a fundamental transformation in how infrastructure supports the company. By reducing technical debt and automating infrastructure management, the teams at Textkernel gained the freedom to focus on what matters most: delivering value to their customers.

The key outcomes

Instant provisioning: New environments are deployed with a single command.
Cost savings: Significant projected savings over five years compared to on-prem infrastructure.
Increased efficiency: 25% reduction in time spent on infrastructure maintenance.
High availability: 99.99% uptime baked into the platform design.
Scalable from the design phase: Supports 120% growth without major changes.
Global scale: Ability to spin up local environments for new regions in minutes.

The solution

Engineering a Kubernetes launch platform, Together

As specialists in modernizing complex environments, we followed a proven approach based on the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF), with a strong focus on Kubernetes as the engine for transformation. The project was carried out in three phases, in accordance with the AWS MAP program.

Phase 1: Assessment & planning

We began with a high-level application assessment to determine which workloads were suitable for containerization and a Kubernetes-native architecture, and which were better suited to a lift-and-shift approach. Based on this, we developed a strategic migration plan that carefully balanced business impact, technical feasibility, and operational risk.

Phase 2: Mobilization

This phase really showcased our expertise. Within a few weeks, we built an AWS Landing Zone that went far beyond a simple VPC. It served as a secure foundation with properly configured IAM roles, security groups, and network segmentation. Building on this foundation, we used Infrastructure as Code (Terraform and Helm) to deploy a fully automated, production-ready Amazon EKS cluster, designed from the ground up for resilience and security.

Control Plane Hardening: The EKS control plane was configured with strict API server access and integrated with AWS IAM for granular role-based access control (RBAC).
Data Plane Optimization: We designed a data plane with managed node groups across multiple Availability Zones to ensure high availability.
Advanced Networking with Calico: We deliberately chose Calico as our Container Network Interface (CNI). This provides extensive capabilities for network policies and security segmentation between pods, which are essential for a multi-tenant SaaS platform.
Built-in Security with Aquasec Trivy: Security was not an afterthought. Aquasec Trivy was directly integrated into the CI/CD pipeline for automated vulnerability scans of container images, ensuring that insecure images never reach production.

Phase 3: Migration & modernization

The key to success lay in the final phase. We migrated 30% of the workloads and re-platformed them collectively. We worked side by side with Textkernel engineers to refactor applications into truly Kubernetes-native workloads, breaking down monolithic components into scalable microservices.

To gain in-depth insight into the cluster’s performance and health, we built a dashboard featuring a complete observability stack that integrates Amazon CloudWatch, Prometheus, and Grafana. Through on-the-job training and shared ownership of the Terraform code and Helm charts, the team became the owner and operator of the new Kubernetes platform.

What set this project apart was our focus on knowledge transfer. The engineers at Textkernel were involved in every step, gained expertise, and developed the confidence to manage and further develop the platform on their own.

Kubernetes logo

Three people sitting at a desk looking at a laptop

Faster innovation

The result: a platform for innovation

The technical transformation had a direct impact on the entire organization. The figures speak for themselves:

99.99% uptime: Extreme reliability, embedded in the platform design.
25% more focus on innovation: Engineers spend their time building features instead of managing infrastructure.
Significant expected cost savings: Over a five-year period, as a direct result of efficiency and scalability.

But the real benefit lies in strategic flexibility. New international customers can now be onboarded within minutes by rolling out a local environment. The time to market for new services has been drastically reduced. And the team is ready to adopt new AWS services as soon as they demonstrate added value.

Textkernel No longer does it have an IT environment that merely keeps pace with the business; it now has a technological launchpad that propels the business forward. And that is what we at SUE strive for every day: turning complex technology into a strategic advantage for our clients.

To learn how SUE sets up and manages Kubernetes clusters, visit the Kubernetes page.

In another project, SUE migrated four data centers to AWS for Textkernel. Read the case study: A flexible and scalable future for Textkernel through a Cloud Migration to AWS.