Spellbind

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Project Manager of a software development company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

The company is a leading Custom Software Development company and Digital Solution Expert

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Spellbind to accomplish?

• We engaged Spellbind to support our migration from AWS to Azure, and the experience was exceptional. As a growing software development firm, we had scaled quite a bit on AWS, but our long-term strategy leaned toward Microsoft-based platforms, particularly due to tighter integrations with our development tools and internal business software. Our internal team had limited experience with Azure, and while we were confident in our own infrastructure management, we needed deep expertise to plan and execute the migration without impacting our ongoing development cycles. Spellbind was brought in to bridge that gap, ensure continuity, and help us make a technically sound and cost-effective transition.

SOLUTION

How did you find Spellbind?

• Online Search
• Clutch Site

Why did you select Spellbind over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Spellbind were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Spellbind began with a full audit of our AWS architecture. They worked with our DevOps and backend leads to catalog dependencies, storage volumes, compute instances, network policies, and deployment pipelines. Their first deliverable was a cloud readiness assessment and a migration roadmap that broke the project into multiple, manageable stages.

Key deliverables included:

• Custom Azure Infrastructure Blueprint: A fully mapped-out design tailored to our needs for scalability, cost control, and integration with Active Directory and Microsoft 365.
• Workload Re-mapping and Refactoring: Applications previously containerized for ECS were transitioned to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), and some were optimized for Azure Functions for cost-efficiency.
• Database Migration: Our RDS instances were successfully migrated to Azure SQL Database, with thorough validation to prevent data loss and minimize downtime.
• CI/CD Pipeline Realignment: Our existing Jenkins pipelines were replaced with Azure DevOps workflows, including environment-based deployments with approval gates.
• Security & Compliance Setup: Spellbind implemented role-based access control, integrated Azure Defender, and guided our compliance team on data residency and logging best practices.

Knowledge Transfer & Documentation: Post-migration, they delivered clear documentation and ran internal workshops to bring our IT team up to speed.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

After the migration, our development velocity increased because Azure DevOps fit more naturally into our existing sprint and deployment workflows. We also noticed more consistent compute and storage costs compared to AWS. More importantly, the integration between our internal tools (like Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Power BI) and the cloud backend became more seamless, which improved productivity across departments — not just IT.

There was almost no service disruption during the entire process. Our QA team was involved at each stage, and issues were addressed immediately by Spellbind’s engineers, ensuring a smooth cutover.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Spellbind’s project management was one of the highlights. They used a hybrid agile approach — with weekly sprints and milestone reviews — and always made sure we had visibility into what was happening. Their technical PM worked closely with both our engineering lead and IT manager, which helped align priorities across teams. Communication was top-notch — we had a dedicated Slack channel and bi-weekly video syncs. They were never reactive — always thinking two steps ahead and flagging things before they became problems.

What was your primary form of communication with Spellbind?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

What stood out most was how proactive and calm the team was, even under pressure. Midway through the migration, we ran into a third-party vendor issue that threatened to delay the whole project. Spellbind immediately initiated a workaround that involved decoupling the affected app and temporarily hosting it in a hybrid configuration until the vendor-side fix was ready. Their technical creativity, coupled with their ability to maintain calm under pressure, was truly impressive.

They also went beyond just “doing the job” — they equipped us to own and operate the Azure environment confidently. That empowerment mindset is rare and very much appreciated.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Spellbind could have done differently?

If I had to nitpick, it would be that the initial timeline estimation was a bit optimistic — not by much, but we had to extend by a week due to some unanticipated complexities in migrating legacy app logs.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Senior Project Program Manager of TEKsystems

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

We’re TEKsystems and TEKsystems Global Services. We accelerate business transformation for our customers, so they can capitalize on change and master the momentum of technology.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Spellbind to accomplish?

• We brought in Spellbind with a specific mission: to lead and manage our complete cloud migration initiative. As an IT services and consulting firm, we had a sprawling mix of legacy systems, on-prem databases, and development environments that weren’t scaling well. Our internal teams had been weighing the move to AWS for quite some time, but the complexity of migrating while maintaining uptime across multiple internal and client-facing tools was daunting. What we needed was not just a lift-and-shift, but a rethinking of our infrastructure — built for scalability, automation, and efficiency. We hired Spellbind to evaluate our infrastructure, design a secure, scalable AWS cloud architecture, perform the migration, and introduce CI/CD pipelines to streamline our future deployments. In short: we wanted to future-proof our operations without disrupting our day-to-day business.

SOLUTION

How did you find Spellbind?

• Online Search
• Clutch Site

Why did you select Spellbind over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Good value for cost

How many teammates from Spellbind were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Working with Spellbind.io on our cloud migration project was a game-changer for us. We had been putting off moving our systems to AWS because of how complex it seemed, but they made the whole process smooth and way less stressful than we expected.

From the very beginning, their team was exceptional in how they approached the project. They conducted a full infrastructure assessment, interviewing both our DevOps and backend teams to understand dependencies and workflows. What followed was a clearly phased roadmap, which included:

• A customized AWS infrastructure blueprint aligned with our scalability goals
• Full data migration from on-prem databases to Amazon RDS and S3, with encryption and failover measures
• Re-architecture of several internal apps to be containerized and deployed via ECS
• Implementation of CI/CD pipelines using GitLab and Terraform to improve our deployment velocity
• Identity and access management optimization via AWS IAM and SSO
• Post-migration monitoring setup using CloudWatch and custom dashboards for internal teams

Spellbind even worked cross-functionally with our compliance and finance teams to make sure the new setup met internal governance and budgetary goals.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

The results were felt almost immediately. After the migration was completed, our infrastructure performance saw a significant improvement — latency went down across the board, and our production environment stabilized in ways we hadn’t expected. We also experienced less downtime during deployments thanks to the newly established CI/CD flows.

Operational costs saw a notable decrease too, primarily from right-sizing compute resources and removing redundant systems. The team also set up a real-time usage monitoring panel, which empowered our engineering leads to be more proactive in cost control and scaling decisions.

Most importantly, the migration happened with virtually no disruption to our service or users — something we were extremely worried about at the start.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Spellbind’s project management was solid from start to finish. They followed an agile methodology with weekly check-ins, clearly defined sprints, and shared documentation that made collaboration straightforward. Their responsiveness was one of the things we appreciated most. Whether it was a last-minute change request or a security audit concern that popped up unexpectedly, they addressed everything promptly and transparently.

They were also flexible — when our internal team needed more time for stakeholder sign-offs, Spellbind was quick to adjust the timelines without derailing the project. It felt like they were an extension of our internal team rather than just an external vendor.

What was your primary form of communication with Spellbind?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The standout quality was how Spellbind managed to bridge deep technical expertise with genuine client empathy. It’s rare to find a team that is so well-versed in cloud architecture and DevOps best practices but can also communicate clearly and patiently with non-technical stakeholders.

They didn’t just “build stuff” — they educated us throughout the process. They explained the why behind each decision, the risks involved, and the long-term impact. This wasn’t a transactional engagement; it was a true partnership.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Spellbind could have done differently?

This was one of the smoothest collaborations we’ve had with a consulting firm, but if we had to suggest one area for enhancement, it would be dashboard customization.