Work / NHS App
Re-architecting the NHS App for zero downtime
The NHS App supports over 30 million users. I was the hands-on architect for a full-stack re-architecture focused on scalability and a zero-downtime SLA.
- Client
- NHS App
- Engagement
- Via Kainos
- Role
- Technical Lead & Architect
- Period
- Sep 2021 - Mar 2023
- Sector
- Health
In numbers
30M+
users supported
Context
The production environment had to move to Azure best practice while the app stayed live for its users, and the platform needed to become easier to scale, secure and maintain.
What I did
- Re-architected the production environment to Azure best practice, defined in Terraform.
- Ran the old and new architectures side by side throughout the migration.
- Redesigned the platform to run multiple AKS clusters per region behind a hub-spoke network topology, improving availability, security posture and cluster maintenance.
- Rebuilt dev and test as ad-hoc, user-isolated environments on dedicated infrastructure, using the latest Azure products.
Technology
- Azure networking
- AKS
- Application Gateway
- Azure Bastion
- Azure Functions
- Event Hubs
- Kubernetes
- Terraform
- Azure DevOps (private agents)
- Bash
Have a platform decision coming up?
Tell me where the programme is and what needs deciding. I will tell you plainly whether I can help.