The Challenge

When a federal contract is on the line, there’s no room for missed deadlines. Our client—a simulation technology company serving Department of Defense agencies—needed to migrate from Azure to AWS GovCloud IL5 to maintain compliance with federal security standards.

The timeline was aggressive: roughly 6 weeks from early October to a hard November 21st deadline, compressed further by a government shutdown. Adding complexity:

• Institutional knowledge gaps: Key personnel had departed, leaving thin understanding of the existing codebase
• Security requirements: US citizenship required for anyone viewing code
• Communication layers: Client was middleman between us and actual government end-clients

Our Approach

Lean Team Structure

We executed with 2 engineers consistently, plus 3 UK-based AWS consultants (Dan Richards, Steve Hartland, Scott Sargent) providing expertise without direct code access due to citizenship requirements.

Infrastructure-as-Code

We built on AWS EKS as the foundation, using Terraform for provisioning and Helm for configuration. This enabled repeatable, auditable infrastructure that met government documentation requirements.

Component Migration

We migrated 5 components total:

1. Simulation Engine (Godot fork)
2. Military Symbol Service (NATO unit symbols)
3. Geoserver (geographical data)
4. Valhalla (unit routing and pathing)
5. Nakama (open-source matchmaking)

Agones provided game server orchestration with automatic scaling based on load.

Learning Under Pressure

Our lead engineer had zero DevOps experience going into this project. Using AWS documentation and expert consultation, they delivered while simultaneously learning infrastructure-as-code practices.

The Results

We delivered 4 of 5 components to AWS GovCloud IL5 by the November 21st deadline.

• Federal contract preserved through compliant infrastructure
• DOD security requirements met with IL5 certification
• Knowledge transfer completed despite tight timeline
• Sustainable foundation for ongoing operations