Migrating to GitHub Actions for CI/CD Efficiency
Austin, TX
Executive Summary
Client Overview
A cloud-native SaaS provider with 300 developers managing 150+ microservices needed to modernize their CI/CD pipeline. Their legacy system—two self-hosted Jenkins masters (750 jobs) and 40 Azure DevOps pipelines—was slow, fragile, and costly. With 12,000 container images/year and strict SOC 2/ISO 27001 compliance requiring SBOMs for every release, they needed a scalable, secure solution.
Key Scope Items
Solution Implemented
- Central “actions‑factory” repo housing versioned composite workflows; all 150 service repos consume them via uses: references.
- Shift‑left security gates: Syft SBOMs, cosign attestations, and Trivy HIGH/CRITICAL blockers built into every job.
- Self‑hosted AKS runner pool with auto‑scaling, slashing hosted‑minute charges by 60 %.
- GitHub Environments + required reviewers for auditable, staged promotions and instant rollback.
Outcomes Expected
- Shrink median pipeline time from 40 minutes to < 20 minutes while cutting failure rate below 5 %.
- Provide 100 % image SBOM coverage and drive critical CVEs to single‑digit counts per month.
- Triple daily deployment frequency without increasing head‑count or spend.
- Realize six‑figure annual savings through tool consolidation and runner efficiency.
Challenge
- Slow, unreliable builds: 40-minute median pipeline time with a 12% failure rate
- High maintenance: 32 engineer-hours/month wasted on Jenkins/ADO upkeep ($85K/year)
- Security gaps: Only 5% of images had SBOMs, with 126 critical CVEs discovered monthly
- Sprawling pipelines: 120+ duplicate YAML files made updates error-prone
Solution
- GitHub Actions Migration
Built a central “actions‑factory” repository with versioned, reusable composite actions.
- All product repos reference actions via uses: org/[email protected].
- Shift‑Left Security
Embedded Syft SBOM generation and cosign attestations in every build.
- Added Trivy gates to block images with HIGH/CRITICAL vulnerabilities.
- Cost‑Efficient Runners
Deployed self‑hosted runners on AKS with auto‑scaling, trimming hosted‑minute charges by 60 %.
- Controlled Promotions
Leveraged GitHub Environments and required reviewers to enforce stage gates and audit trails.
Implementation
- Weeks 1–3: Assessment, value‑stream mapping, and roadmap sign‑off.
- Weeks 4–9: Pilot migration of ten services; validated security gates and runner autoscaling.
- Weeks 10–19: Full cut‑over of all 150 services, retirement of Jenkins and Azure DevOps.
- Weeks 20–24: Fine‑tuning dashboards, cost reporting, and developer enablement workshops.
Results & Impact
- 63% faster builds (40m → 15m median)
- 89% fewer critical CVEs (126 → 14/month)
- 3x release frequency (1.1 → 3.4 deploys/service/day)
- $190K annual savings from infra/labor reductions
Key Takeaways
- Reusable, versioned workflows eradicated pipeline sprawl—one change now propagates everywhere.
- SBOMs and vulnerability scanning inside CI deliver audit‑ready artifacts and catch issues before merge.
- AKS runner autoscaling balances performance with cost, eliminating excessive hosted‑minutes.
- A modern, GitHub Actions–based CI/CD foundation boosted velocity, hardened security, and produced six‑figure savings.
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