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
Seamless scalability 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

Before the migration, Textkernel ran its applications on an on-prem virtualized platform built on Proxmox, automated with Ansible. While functional, the system was reaching its limits.

The main challenges:

Gradual provisioning: Rolling out new environments 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: The existing automation and scripts had grown organically over time, creating an opportunity to modernize with Kubernetes

After experiments with containers, Textkernel recognized the value of EKS as a flexible, scalable and highly available platform with great agility. However, a full-scale migration project in a short period seemed unreachable.

Guus Meijer, Chief Operating Officer - Managing Director at Textkernel

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

The impact

Cloud-native, automated, and ready for the future

As a long-term partner of Textkernel, SUE took up the challenge to architect and deliver a fully automated Kubernetes platform using Amazon EKS. The result was a transformation in how infrastructure supports the business. By reducing technical debt and automating infrastructure management, Textkernel’s teams 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 by design: Supports 120% growth with no major changes required.
Global scale: Ability to spin up local environments for new regions in minutes.

The solution

Engineering a Kubernetes launch, Together

As specialists in modernizing complex environments, we followed a proven path based on the AWS Cloud Adoption Framework (AWS CAF), but with a deep focus on Kubernetes as the core engine for transformation. The project was executed in three phases using the MAP program.

Phase 1: Assessment & planning

We kicked off with a high-level application assessment, identifying which workloads were fit for containerization and a Kubernetes-native architecture, and which were better suited to lift-and-shift. A strategic migration plan was developed, balancing business impact, technical feasibility, and operational risk.

Phase 2: Mobilization

This is where our expertise truly came to the forefront. In just a few weeks, we built a robust AWS landing zone that was much more than just a VPC. It was a secure foundation with correctly configured IAM roles, security groups, and network segmentation.
Upon this foundation, we used Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform and Helm) to roll out a fully automated, production-grade Amazon EKS cluster, engineered for resilience and security from the ground up.

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 made the deliberate choice to implement Calico as the Container Network Interface (CNI). This gives Textkernel powerful capabilities for fine-grained network policies and security segmentation between pods, a crucial requirement for a multi-tenant SaaS platform.
Embedded Security with Aqua Trivy: Security was not an afterthought. We integrated Aqua Trivy directly into the CI/CD pipeline for automated container image vulnerability scanning, preventing insecure images from ever reaching 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 Textkernel refactor applications into truly Kubernetes-native workloads, breaking down monolithic components into scalable microservices.

To gain in-depth insight into the performance and health of the cluster, we built a dashboard with a complete observability stack, integrating Amazon CloudWatch, Prometheus, and Grafana. Through on-the-job training and shared ownership of Terraform and Helm charts, the team grew to become owners and operators of their new, powerful Kubernetes platform.

What set this project apart was our focus on enablement. Textkernel engineers Textkernel involved in every step, building knowledge and developing the confidence to manage and further develop the platform independently.

Kubernetes logo

Three people behind 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 Textkernel an IT environment that follows the company; it now has a technological launch pad that propels the company forward. And that is what we at SUE strive for every day: transforming complex technology into a strategic advantage for our customers.