Modernizing Critical Infrastructure
Clearing four years of technical debt to future-proof core systems
Modernizing Critical Infrastructure
Clearing four years of technical debt to future-proof core systems
The Challenge
A global wholesale and food service distribution giant faced severe operational risks due to outdated infrastructure and tooling. Critical workloads were running on legacy Terraform (v0.11), deprecated Helm charts, and unsupported Kubernetes clusters—introducing instability and blocking modernization.
MongoDB replicas were broken, leading to inconsistent data
Cert-manager and DNS services were unreliable, risking outages.
Kafka, Elasticsearch, Redis and other platforms were running end-of-life versions.
The environment used deprecated AMIs, creating serious security and compliance gaps.
When the OEM ended support for Laika, a business-critical application, modernization became non-negotiable. Without intervention, the risk of downtime and non-compliance loomed large.
The Solution
Topcoder stepped in to modernize the entire infrastructure in a single, strategic effort. The unsupported Laika Terraform codebase was refactored and re-architected, bringing it in line with current best practices. The full Terraform stack was upgraded to v1.5+, with modular design, proper state management, and automated CI validations.
Helm charts for Kafka, MongoDB, Redis, Elasticsearch, DNS, and Prometheus were rebuilt and upgraded to the latest stable versions—each deployed using zero-downtime strategies. cert-manager and DNS systems were stabilized to ensure secure and reliable operations.
A modern CI/CD and GitOps pipeline was implemented, enabling fully automated, secret-managed, and predictable deployments across environments.
4+
Years of Technical Debt Cleared
6
Core Services Upgraded
4
Weeks
100%
Infrastructure Modernization
The Impact
The results were transformative—delivering a stable, secure, and scalable infrastructure ready for future growth.
100% modernization of outdated infrastructure with no downtime or rollback
Laika restored, eliminating unsupported OEM risk
Kafka upgraded, with zero message loss and preserved consumer states
Security risks removed, with hardened AMIs replacing deprecated images
Future-ready platform, built on GitOps, CI/CD, and modular Terraform
Achieve high-quality outcomes with
Topcoder.
Achieve high-quality outcomes with Topcoder.