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Quick answer
UnlockLive IT delivers AWS, Azure, and GCP cloud architecture, migration, Kubernetes platform engineering, and 24/7 SRE for North American businesses. We move legacy applications to the cloud with zero-downtime cutovers, build cloud-native EKS / serverless platforms from scratch, and run ongoing cloud operations with infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CDK, Pulumi), GitOps pipelines, and observability on Datadog or Grafana. Our cloud team is certified across all three major clouds, and most clients see 25-40% cloud bill reduction in the first 60 days of our FinOps work — without sacrificing reliability.
What we build
AWS / Azure / GCP architecture & migration:Lift-and-shift, replatforming, and re-architecting from on-prem, Heroku, and other clouds. Zero-downtime cutovers with documented rollback plans. Most migrations complete 30-50% faster than the customer expected.
Kubernetes platform engineering:EKS, AKS, GKE, and self-managed Kubernetes. Helm charts, GitOps with ArgoCD or Flux, service mesh (Istio, Linkerd), policy enforcement (OPA, Kyverno), and developer-first internal platforms (Backstage).
Infrastructure-as-code at scale:Terraform (with terragrunt), AWS CDK (TypeScript / Python), Pulumi, and CloudFormation. Module-based, multi-environment, with PR-based workflows, plan review automation (Atlantis, Spacelift, Terraform Cloud), and drift detection.
CI/CD pipelines & developer platforms:GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI, Jenkins. Build acceleration (Turborepo remote cache, Bazel, Nx), trunk-based deployment, preview environments per PR, and progressive rollouts (canary, blue/green, feature flags).
FinOps & cloud cost reduction:Right-sizing, RI/Savings Plan strategy, spot/preemptible adoption, storage tiering, idle resource cleanup, and architectural cost reductions. Most clients see 25-40% cloud bill reduction in the first 60 days.
Site reliability engineering & 24/7 on-call:SLO/SLI definition, error budget management, incident response playbooks, blameless post-mortems, chaos testing (Gremlin, AWS FIS), and 24/7 SRE coverage out of our Toronto and Dhaka offices.
Our cloud & DevOps stack
Our cloud & DevOps process
- Cloud assessment (1-2 weeks): Architecture review, cost analysis, security posture audit, performance baseline, and a written report with prioritized recommendations. We never recommend migration for the sake of migration — sometimes the answer is 'fix what you have.'
- Migration / build planning (1-2 weeks): Wave plan for migrations, target architecture diagrams, IaC module breakdown, observability strategy, and a fixed-price quote per wave or per workload.
- Pilot wave (2-4 weeks): Migrate or build the lowest-risk workload first. Prove the IaC patterns, the CI/CD pipelines, the observability stack, and the rollback procedures on something safe before doing the high-stakes work.
- Production migration / build (4-24 weeks): Wave-by-wave execution with documented runbooks, dress-rehearsal cutover testing, and explicit go/no-go criteria. Every wave includes monitoring, alerting, and a 2-week stabilization period before the next wave.
- Optimization & FinOps (ongoing): Quarterly cost reviews, RI/SP coverage management, right-sizing automation, architectural reviews. Most clients realize 25-40% cloud bill reduction within the first 60 days of FinOps work.
- 24/7 SRE (retainer): On-call coverage, incident response, capacity planning, performance tuning, and ongoing platform improvements. SLAs typically 15-minute acknowledgment, 1-hour senior engineer at the keyboard for sev-1.
Frequently asked questions
Which cloud should we use — AWS, Azure, or GCP?
For most North American startups and SaaS we default to AWS (breadth of services, depth of community, lowest hiring risk). Azure is our recommendation when you're a Microsoft shop (Active Directory, Microsoft 365, .NET workloads, government / regulated procurement requiring Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty). GCP is our default for data and AI workloads (BigQuery, Vertex AI, Spanner). We have certified engineers across all three and will recommend based on your situation, not our preference.
How much can you reduce our existing cloud bill?
Most clients realize 25-40% cloud cost reduction within 60 days of our first FinOps engagement, through right-sizing, RI/Savings Plan strategy, deletion of unused resources, storage tiering (S3 Intelligent-Tiering, lifecycle policies), and architectural improvements like moving suitable workloads off EC2 onto Lambda or Fargate. We share findings before implementing anything and never make changes that risk reliability.
How long does a cloud migration take?
Small monolithic apps: 2-4 weeks. Mid-sized environments with 10-30 services and a database: 6-12 weeks. Large enterprise migrations with hundreds of services: 6-18 months in multiple waves. Every migration starts with a 1-2 week assessment phase, and we always pilot the lowest-risk workload first before the rest.
Do you offer 24/7 monitoring and on-call?
Yes. We offer follow-the-sun coverage across our Toronto and Dhaka offices, with optional named on-call rotations for production incident response. SLAs typically 15-minute acknowledgment and 1-hour senior engineer at the keyboard for sev-1 incidents. Retainer pricing is transparent — based on workload count, alert volume, and required response time.
Do you handle Kubernetes, or just managed services?
Both. We're equally comfortable on serverless (Lambda, Fargate, Cloud Run, Cloudflare Workers) and Kubernetes (EKS, AKS, GKE, self-managed). For most startups we recommend serverless or Fargate first and graduate to Kubernetes when complexity warrants it. For enterprises with multiple teams and platform engineering needs, Kubernetes is usually the right call.
Are your engineers actually certified?
Yes. Our cloud team holds AWS Solutions Architect Professional, AWS DevOps Engineer Professional, Azure Solutions Architect Expert, and Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect certifications, plus CKA/CKAD for Kubernetes-specific work. We share certifications and work histories on request.
Do you do everything via infrastructure-as-code?
Yes. Every infrastructure change is captured in Terraform, AWS CDK, Pulumi, or CloudFormation. No click-ops in the AWS console. PRs are reviewed, plans are posted to the PR, and merges trigger applies. Drift detection runs nightly. This is non-negotiable for production environments.
Ready to take cloud costs and reliability seriously?
Whether you need a full migration, a Kubernetes platform, or just a 25%+ cut to your AWS bill, book a free strategy call with our Toronto team.
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