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Case study: Collage
Collage Modernised AWS Operations With a Tailored Landing Zone and Terraform
A Toronto HR and payroll SaaS needed a stronger AWS foundation. Pilotcore delivered a multi-account Control Tower landing zone, Terraform-managed infrastructure, and a fully automated deployment workflow the team owns.
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Sector
HR / SaaS, Toronto
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Engagement
AWS landing zone and DevOps
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Stack
AWS Control Tower, Terraform, ECS, Fargate
Challenge
A growing HR SaaS needed a stronger AWS foundation.
Collage runs HR, benefits, and payroll workloads with about 30 employees. The existing AWS estate was not built for the scale and security expectations the platform now needed.
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Limited infrastructure-as-code practices.
The existing AWS estate was not standardised, which made changes risky and hard to review.
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Performance, scalability, and security gaps.
The platform needed a stronger foundation to keep up with HR, benefits, and payroll workloads.
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Complex software needing a tailored migration.
An off-the-shelf migration playbook would not have respected the application's edges.
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Capacity to use AWS effectively.
The team needed clear patterns to take advantage of AWS-native capabilities.
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Staff training on the new environment.
Engineers needed enough context to operate the new environment confidently after handoff.
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Stringent security and compliance expectations.
HR and payroll data raised the bar for access control, audit, and operational evidence.
Approach
Why Collage chose Pilotcore, and how we worked.
Collage picked Pilotcore for AWS specialisation, local collaboration fit, and a delivery approach that respected their platform goals and timeline. We translated that into a clear engagement plan.
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Discovery and goal mapping.
Thorough analysis of Collage's specific needs, objectives, and current operating constraints.
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AWS guidance and education.
Brought the team up to speed on AWS best practices and patterns that fit their stack.
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Technical discovery.
Performed deep requirements analysis to size the engagement and the migration path realistically.
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Custom AWS and DevOps design.
Developed tailored AWS and DevOps solutions instead of forcing a generic template.
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Industry-standard practices.
Focused on patterns the team can keep using long after the engagement ends.
Solution
A tailored AWS landing zone, end-to-end automation, and trained staff.
The implementation centred on a Control Tower landing zone, Terraform-managed infrastructure, integrated AWS services, and an automated deployment workflow the team can extend.
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Terraform for infrastructure as code.
Used Terraform to produce consistent, predictable environments that replicate across stages.
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Multi-account AWS Control Tower landing zone.
Set up a multi-account landing zone with AWS Control Tower for stronger isolation, security, and compliance.
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AWS service integration.
Brought together Amazon ECS, CloudFront, Elastic Load Balancing, AWS Fargate, and cron jobs into one coherent stack.
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Fully automated deployments.
Set up automated deployment processes to reduce manual intervention and shorten release cycles.
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Enhanced security controls.
Implemented security measures aligned with Collage's compliance expectations.
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Staff training on the new environment.
Trained Collage's staff so they could operate confidently within the new AWS environment.
Outcomes
Engagement-specific benefits delivered.
Outcomes reflect client-reported operational improvements during the engagement period. Results vary based on baseline maturity and adoption.
i. Staging
Outcome 01
Fully integrated staging environment.
Successfully integrated Collage's staging environment with ECS, CloudFront, load balancing, Fargate, and cron jobs.
ii. Deployments
Outcome 02
Fully automated deployments.
Automated deployment processes reduced manual intervention and accelerated release cycles.
iii. IaC
Outcome 03
Complete infrastructure as code.
Adopted a complete IaC approach so infrastructure is consistent, repeatable, and scalable.
iv. Observability
Outcome 04
Enhanced observability.
Integrated monitoring and logging gave the team proactive issue detection and informed decision-making.
In their words
What Collage said about the engagement.
Client testimonial
“The project was delivered on time, and the agreed-upon scope was implemented fully. Our app was 100% functional in the new infrastructure.”
Gregory Sparrow, Lead Software Engineering, Collage
Next step
Optimize Your Cloud Like Collage.
Streamline your infrastructure with tailored AWS solutions that improve security, deployment confidence, and operational clarity. We can walk through what would change in your environment.