Learn how Mott MacDonald integrated Plural into its internal developer platform, Digital Workspaces, to simplify Kubernetes fleet management, enabling developers to focus on innovation while improving operational efficiency, scalability, and cost savings.
Book a demoMott MacDonald, a global engineering, management and development consultancy, embarked on a mission to streamline and optimize its digital infrastructure. With the rapid expansion of its digital solutions platform, the company wanted to maintain high quality management of its Kubernetes environment. Simon Bell, Head of Platform Services at Mott MacDonald led the initiative to find a solution that would simplify operations, improve efficiency and ultimately drive higher ROI. The answer to these challenges was found in Plural, a robust platform designed for Kubernetes fleet management, which was integrated into their internal developer platform, “Digital Workspaces”.
As Mott MacDonald's digital solutions platform expanded, so did the complexity of managing its Kubernetes clusters. The platform serves as the backbone for multiple digital tools and services, all of which require seamless integration and consistent performance. Bell’s team developed “Digital Workspaces”, an Internal Developer Platform (IDP), to streamline the development process. However, managing Kubernetes clusters within Digital Workspaces soon became challenging. Highlighting the core issue, Simon says, "Our internal teams faced technical challenges in managing Kubernetes clusters within Digital Workspaces, leading to inefficiencies in innovation and diverting developers' focus away from creating new capabilities”. The need was clear. A solution that could integrate with Digital Workspaces and abstract away the complexity of Kubernetes management, freeing developers to focus on what they do best, inventing and innovating.
Mott MacDonald turned to Plural, a platform specifically designed for managing Kubernetes fleets at scale, as the foundation of Digital Workspaces. Plural provided a centralized solution that simplifies the user experience, abstracting the technical complexities and enabling the developers at Mott MacDonald to work more efficiently within the Digital Workspaces platform. Plural's capabilities aligned perfectly with Mott MacDonald's goals, providing more than just Kubernetes management—it delivered an end-to-end workflow solution that addressed the broader needs of its digital platform. By offering a simplified, user-friendly interface and automating a wide array of manual tasks, Plural empowered Mott MacDonald's development teams to focus on delivering high-value solutions to clients.
Beyond Kubernetes, Plural facilitated self-service provisioning for a broader range of infrastructure. This included the ability to provision hardened GitHub repositories that adhered to Mott MacDonald's stringent cybersecurity standards, ensuring their development processes remained both secure and compliant. Additionally, Plural enabled the provisioning of data solutions for transactional workloads, providing the necessary flexibility and scalability to support Mott MacDonald's diverse data requirements.
The implementation of Plural within Workspaces led to significant operational efficiencies. With Plural handling the heavy lifting of Kubernetes management, Mott MacDonald's developers were able to redirect their efforts towards innovation and improving client services.
"Since deploying Plural within Digital Workspaces, we've seen a marked improvement in our operational efficiency. Our teams are now able to deliver new features faster, and we've reduced the time spent on maintenance by a significant margin,” Bell remarked. “This has directly translated into cost savings and increased revenue potential for the company."
The adoption of Plural also enhanced the scalability of its internal digital platform that Digital Workspaces was built to support, allowing Mott MacDonald to easily manage an expanding number of Kubernetes clusters as the platform continues to grow. This scalability was critical in supporting the company's ongoing digital transformation efforts, ensuring that the platform could meet the demands of a growing user base without compromising on performance or reliability.
By leveraging Plural as the foundation of their IDP, Mott MacDonald achieved significant improvements not only in Kubernetes fleet management but across its entire cloud infrastructure.
Beyond rationalizing its Kubernetes usage, Mott MacDonald experienced substantial value in optimizing its broader cloud estate. The self-service provisioning capabilities offered by Plural extended to essential infrastructure components, such as database provisioning and data engineering tooling, empowering teams to manage data solutions and advanced data pipelines using open-source tools with ease. This comprehensive end-to-end solution helped Mott MacDonald achieve greater scalability, enhanced performance and tangible cost savings, directly contributing to its digital transformation goals.
Ultimately, Plural proved to be a valuable asset in Mott MacDonald's journey, providing the flexibility and power to streamline infrastructure management while maintaining reliability, security and high performance. This allowed Mott MacDonald to serve an expanding client base effectively, reinforcing its position as a leader in delivering innovative digital solutions.