Intro
AgeVolt Slovakia s.r.o. is an innovative e-mobility startup headquartered in Bratislava, specializing in electric vehicle (EV) charging solutions. The company manages a rapidly expanding network of IoT-enabled charging stations, delivering smart infrastructure to support sustainable transportation across Europe. They partnered with us, DevOpsGroup s.r.o., to streamline their AWS infrastructure.
Project type: AWS Infrastructure Consolidation and DevOps Automation
Services: AWS Infrastructure Consolidation, DevOps Automation & GitOps (ArgoCD, CI/CD with GitHub Actions), Observability & Monitoring Setup (Grafana, Prometheus, Loki)
The challenge
Rapid growth led to fragmented infrastructure:
- Multiple AWS accounts, increasing management complexity.
- 4+ EKS clusters driving operational overhead.
- Scattered DNS records hindering scalability.
- High costs and risk of disruptions in service delivery.
- Outdated Terraform code complicating maintenance.
These challenges aligned directly with the AWS DevOps Competency, emphasizing the need for consolidated cloud operations to handle high-availability IoT workloads effectively.
Our solution
This was a comprehensive consolidation project: we unified everything into a single AWS account and deployed a streamlined Amazon EKS cluster - replacing the previous 4+ clusters - with dedicated node pools for production, staging, shared and ephemeral services. Karpenter was integrated for dynamic autoscaling, automatically provisioning nodes to match workload demands and optimize compute efficiency. This approach minimized redundancy and ensured zero-downtime migration.
Key AWS services drove the transformation: Amazon RDS for MySQL provided managed, high-availability databases in production with automated backups, paired with Amazon ElastiCache for Redis to enable low-latency caching for real-time applications. Amazon Route53 centralized all DNS records, automated via External-DNS service to ensure seamless updates.
For IoT and messaging, EMQX ran on EKS for secure MQTTS communication with charging stations, while RabbitMQ handled internal queues. Observability was bolstered by integrating Grafana, Prometheus, Loki, InfluxDB, and Telegraf directly on AWS infrastructure for comprehensive monitoring.
DevOps practices were elevated with ArgoCD enabling GitOps for declarative deployments from Git repositories. The GitHub Actions Runner Controller (ARC), deployed as a Kubernetes operator on EKS, automated CI/CD by autoscaling ephemeral, container-based runners based on workflow needs - integrating natively with AWS to accelerate pipelines without extra infrastructure. Additional tools like external-secrets for integration with AWS Secrets Manager and ingress-nginx for Network Load Balancer provisioning rounded out the automated, resilient setup.
Results and benefits
By consolidating multiple accounts and clusters into a unified setup, we reduced monthly costs while boosting efficiency and scalability for their EV charging network. The AWS-powered consolidation delivered transformative outcomes for AgeVolt. Monthly costs plummeted by 67%, from approximately $4,500 to $1,500, thanks to reduced redundancies, optimized resource allocation via Karpenter, and streamlined operations in a single account. Deployment speeds increased with automated CI/CD, while centralized observability minimized downtime and enhanced system reliability.
Results at a glance
| Metric | Before | After | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| AWS accounts | Multiple | 1 | Simplified management |
| EKS clusters | 4+ | 1 | Reduced overhead |
| Monthly cost | ~$4,500 | $1,500 | 67% savings |
| DNS management | Fragmented | Centralized | Streamlined updates |
| CI/CD efficiency | Manual/Fragmented | Automated with ARC | Dynamic scaling & faster workflows |
This transformation empowered AgeVolt to focus on business growth, not infrastructure woes.
