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brainiac/studio

Digital Studio

brainiac/studiobrainiac/studio
← Infrastructure & DevOps
06 · infrastructure & devops / kubernetes

The engine room for big apps — running quietly.

Kubernetes is the heavy-duty technology large platforms use to keep dozens of moving parts running smoothly. It's powerful, and it punishes a sloppy setup. We build it properly, keep it patched, keep the bill sane — or tell you honestly that you don't need it.

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our point of view

Half the businesses that ask us for this shouldn't have it.

It sits behind most large platforms for good reason: when you're running dozens of separate pieces of software that all have to stay up, restart themselves, and grow independently, nothing else does the job as well. But it is a full-time thing to look after. Plenty of teams adopt it because it's what serious companies use, then spend a year maintaining a system more complicated than the product it's carrying.

So the first conversation is always the same one: does your product actually need this? If it doesn't, we'll say so and set you up on something simpler for a fraction of the running cost. If it does — and for a lot of platforms it genuinely does — we build it the boring way. Sensible defaults, locked-down access, automatic patching, spending limits, and enough documentation that your team can run it without us in the room.

30–50%Typical drop in cloud spend after right-sizing
99.95%Uptime target on the platforms we run
0Minutes of downtime during a normal release
what we build

What we build.

01

An honest 'do you need this?' conversation

First, free, and sometimes very short. If two managed services would do the same job for a tenth of the running cost, that's what we'll recommend — and we'll happily build that instead.

02

Set up properly from day one

On AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure — built as code, with private networking, sensible limits, and the security settings most tutorials quietly skip.

03

Releases that roll out safely

New versions go out gradually and stop themselves if something looks wrong. Your customers see a new feature appear, not a maintenance page.

04

Capacity that follows demand

More machines when traffic climbs, fewer at 4am, and cheaper spare capacity used wherever it's safe to. This is where most of the savings actually live.

05

Locked-down access

Who can touch what, rules about which services may talk to each other, passwords stored properly, and every software package scanned before it runs. Not bolted on the week before an audit.

06

Monitoring wired in from the start

Dashboards, logs, and traces built in rather than added later — so when something misbehaves you can see which piece and why in a minute rather than an hour.

07

Patching and upgrades handled

A new version arrives every few months and old ones stop being supported quickly. We keep you current on a schedule, in a planned maintenance window, without the drama.

08

Cost controls that hold

Spending limits per team, an alert when something drifts, and a monthly report showing exactly which part of your product is spending what.

use cases

Who this is for.

01

Platforms with many moving parts

A dozen or more separate services that have to talk to each other, grow independently, and stay up. This is genuinely what the technology was built for.

02

Products with wildly uneven traffic

Quiet nights, brutal mornings, or seasonal spikes ten times normal. Capacity that follows the curve costs far less than capacity sized for your worst day.

03

Teams already on it and struggling

Someone set it up, then left. We inherit it, document it, secure it, and turn it into something your current team can actually operate.

04

Businesses with strict data rules

Regulated industries and government work, where things must run in a specific country, on your own accounts, with a full record of who accessed what.

approach

How we do it.

01

Assess & advise

We look at your product and tell you honestly whether this is the right answer. Roughly half the time it isn't, and that conversation has saved people a great deal of money.

02

Design

Layout, environments, networking, access rules, and cost limits — on a single page, agreed with your team before anything gets built.

03

Build

Everything defined as code and repeatable: clusters, networking, monitoring, and security rules. No hand-clicked settings that nobody can reproduce later.

04

Move in

We move your applications across one at a time, running old and new side by side until each one has proven itself under real traffic.

05

Harden

Access rules, network policies, package scanning, backups, spending limits, and a tested plan for the day an entire cluster has a bad time.

06

Train & hand over

Hands-on sessions with your engineers, written runbooks, and a support period while they take the wheel. We're aiming to become unnecessary.

tech stack

Tools we use.

Kubernetes
Amazon EKS / Google GKE
Helm
ArgoCD
Terraform
Docker
AWS
Cloudflare
Grafana + Prometheus
pricing

Engagement models.

— 01

Cluster Setup

from $20k

One production-ready setup, built as code, with monitoring, security defaults, and your first applications running on it.

  • One production cluster, built as code
  • Automated releases wired in
  • Monitoring, logging and alerts
  • Runbooks and a training session
Most popular— 02

Production Platform

from $55k

Multiple environments, gradual rollouts, cost controls, and everything your team needs to add new services themselves.

  • Staging and production, built identically
  • Self-service templates for new services
  • Gradual rollouts that reverse themselves
  • Cost limits and per-team reporting
— 03

Managed & Enterprise

from $120k

Multi-cluster or multi-region setups, strict compliance requirements, and ongoing management with round-the-clock cover.

  • Multiple clusters or regions
  • Built for SOC 2, ISO 27001 and data-residency rules
  • Patching and upgrades handled for you
  • 24/7 on-call cover included
faq

Frequently asked.

5 questions answered. Still have one? Reach out.

Probably not, if you run a handful of services with steady traffic — a managed platform will be cheaper and far less work. It starts earning its place at roughly ten or more services, several teams shipping independently, very spiky traffic, or a requirement to run in a specific country. You'll get a straight answer in the first call.

5 questions
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