A zero-secret platform for a regulated enterprise

01/Challenge

Challenge

A large organization with strict security and audit requirements was moving workloads to the cloud. Each team ran its own pipelines, connection strings with passwords lived in config files, and when a request failed across three services nobody could say where. The platform had to be secure and observable by default without slowing delivery down.

02/Approach

How it was built

1. 01Containerized APIs as lean, multi-stage images running as non-root on Kubernetes (AKS).
2. 02Replaced static credentials with Entra ID managed and workload identity for databases, queues, storage and cache.
3. 03Instrumented services with OpenTelemetry so one trace follows a request across every hop into Application Insights.
4. 04Built templated CI/CD pipelines: one image per build, with environment values applied at deploy time.
5. 05Kept secrets out of manifests: plain settings live with the deployment, sensitive values in a secret store.

03/Architecture

Decisions that hold the system up

• 01

  No passwords or keys in code, config or pipelines.

• 02

  A single environment-agnostic image promoted from dev to prod.

• 03

  Distributed tracing and dependency telemetry on every service.

• 04

  Hardened pods: non-root users and no privilege escalation.

04/Outcomes

What changed

• Static credentials removed from the services in scope.
• Cross-service failures can be followed hop by hop instead of pieced together from scattered logs.
• New services onboard by reusing pipeline templates rather than writing their own.
• Security reviews got simpler: there are no app secrets left to rotate.