Vladyslav Ratslav

Cloud Architect · DevOps · MLOps · SRE Consultant

Cloudbeds Infrastructure Transformation

Terraform Standardization • Drift Elimination • Atlantis Automation • AWS Architecture

Overview

This project marked one of the most significant turning points in Cloudbeds’ infrastructure evolution. I led a full Infrastructure-as-Code transformation that standardized the entire cloud architecture, eliminated years of environment drift, and established a promotion-driven workflow that reshaped how the engineering organization built and delivered infrastructure.

The result was a clean, predictable, and fully automated IaC foundation that enabled Cloudbeds to shift focus from manual operations to long-term improvements, security, and modernization — including the future transition from EC2 to EKS.

The Challenge

Cloudbeds operated separate AWS environments for production and development. Over time, they diverged significantly, creating operational friction and slowing down infrastructure delivery.

  • Untracked differences between environments
  • Manual changes in AWS consoles
  • No single source of truth
  • High operational overhead
  • Slow, risky infrastructure changes

The organization needed a reliable, scalable, and automated way to manage infrastructure — one that removed drift, enforced consistency, and empowered engineers without exposing the cloud to risk.

My Role

Terraform Architect & DevOps Lead

I designed and executed the full IaC migration strategy, built the Terraform module ecosystem, and implemented the automation platform that now powers Cloudbeds’ infrastructure workflows.

Approach & Execution

1. Production-First Import Strategy

I imported each production service into Terraform one by one, reconstructing the real architecture directly from code. This ensured Terraform reflected reality — not assumptions — and became the authoritative source of truth.

2. Environment Alignment & Drift Elimination

After codifying production, I imported the corresponding development environment into the same configuration. Terraform surfaced every deviation automatically, enabling a structured workflow:

  • Detect differences
  • Investigate intent
  • Communicate with stakeholders
  • Remove drift or promote improvements

This restored full consistency across environments.

3. Reusable Terraform Module Library

I created a suite of reusable modules covering more than 18 core components:

  • VPCs & networking
  • ECS services
  • EC2 servers & configurations
  • IAM roles & policies
  • Load balancers
  • Databases & storage
  • Observability components

These modules standardized deployments and simplified onboarding across the organization.

4. Atlantis Automation on ECS

To operationalize IaC, I integrated all Terraform repositories with a private Atlantis deployment running on ECS. Atlantis enabled:

  • Automatic Terraform plans on every pull request
  • Dev-first apply workflow
  • Safe, auditable promotion to production
  • Self-service infrastructure changes

This eliminated console-based operations and enforced a clean, review-driven workflow.

Impact

  • Significant reduction in manual infrastructure operations
  • Zero drift between environments
  • Predictable, scalable IaC foundation
  • Faster and safer infrastructure delivery
  • Enabled future migration from EC2 to EKS

Key Technologies

  • Terraform
  • AWS (ECS, EC2, IAM, VPC, RDS, ALB/NLB)
  • Atlantis
  • Git-based promotion workflows
  • Infrastructure-as-Code architecture

What This Project Demonstrates

  • Deep architectural thinking
  • Ability to rebuild complex infrastructure from the ground up
  • Strong DevOps and IaC leadership
  • Clean, intentional design focused on long-term maintainability
  • Vision-driven execution, not tool-driven implementation
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