Backend & Cloud Engineering
Docker, Kubernetes & DevOps
Containerisation and orchestration, used where it genuinely helps.
- Typical timeline
- 1-2 weeks for containerisation; 3-6 weeks for orchestration
- Category
- Backend & Cloud Engineering
- Engagement
- Fixed-scope phases
- You receive
- Code, data & documentation
Overview
Containers solve a real problem — environments that differ between development and production. Kubernetes solves a different and narrower one, and brings significant operational weight with it. We will containerise your application in most cases and recommend Kubernetes only when your scale actually calls for it.
"It works on my machine" and nowhere else reliably
Development, staging and production have drifted apart in their versions and configuration, so bugs appear in one environment and not another. Setting up a new developer takes days. Scaling means manually configuring another server identically, which never quite happens.
You will recognise this if
- Bugs that appear in production cannot be reproduced locally
- Onboarding a new developer takes days of environment setup
- Deployments require a documented sequence of manual steps
- Scaling up means someone manually configuring another server
What you get out of it
The difference this makes
Identical environments
The same container image runs locally, in staging and in production, which eliminates an entire category of environment-specific bugs.
Onboarding in minutes
A new developer runs one command and has a working environment, instead of spending two days installing dependencies.
Scaling as a configuration change
Adding capacity becomes a number in a file rather than a manual server build.
Right-sized operations
We recommend the simplest setup that meets your needs, because unnecessary Kubernetes is a permanent operational tax.
What we build
- Dockerfile authoring with multi-stage builds and minimal, scanned base images
- Docker Compose for local development parity
- Container registry setup with automated image builds and vulnerability scanning
- Kubernetes manifests or Helm charts where orchestration is warranted
- Horizontal autoscaling, resource limits and pod disruption budgets
- Ingress, TLS termination and service mesh configuration where needed
- CI/CD pipelines with automated testing and progressive rollout
- Centralised logging and metrics with dashboards and alerts
- Secrets management integrated with the deployment pipeline
- Documentation and handover so your team can operate it
How it gets used
A team standardising their environments
Containerising the application and adding Compose for local development, which removes environment drift without adopting orchestration.
A product with genuinely variable load
Kubernetes with autoscaling, where traffic patterns make elastic capacity worth the operational complexity.
A company formalising release practice
Pipelines, environment promotion, automated tests and rollback, replacing manual deployment procedures.
Technology we typically use
You do not need to care about this list — but your next developer will.
- Docker
- Docker Compose
- Kubernetes
- Helm
- GitHub Actions
- Terraform
- Prometheus / Grafana / Loki
Timeline: Typically 1-2 weeks for containerisation; 3-6 weeks for orchestration
Questions
Docker, Kubernetes & DevOps — common questions
Something else on your mind? Ask us directly — it is usually faster than reading.
Do we need Kubernetes?
Will containerisation make our application faster?
Can you set up CI/CD for our existing project?
Related services
Businesses that need this often need one of these as well.
Thinking about docker, kubernetes & devops?
Tell us about your situation. We will tell you whether this is the right service, what it would involve, and roughly what it would cost.